The Monster and I
by beautifulyes
Summary: A darker romance. Searching for balance and trust, Edward and Bella negotiate a tangled web of sex, blood, secrets, kink, and demons from the past. NOT CANON-STYLE VAMPIRES. Very, very AU. Much lemons, violence, and dark and dominant Edward.
1. Cold and Hot

**A/N: I don't own Edward, Bella, or anything else in the **_**Twilight**_** universe. Big surprise there. **

**I intend this to have some S&M and D/s in later chapters. If dark and dominant Edward doesn't give you little chills, turn back while you still can! **

**Also, be aware that Edward is NOT A TRADITIONAL CANON-STYLE VAMPIRE. **

**All will be explained in time. **

*********

**Bella's POV:**

The wind picked up and I shivered.

"Cold, love?" Edward asked, and had his white leather jacket wrapped around my shoulders in a heartbeat.

I shivered again; the inside of his jacket was colder than the crisp fall air. "I don't understand how you can be this cold all the time. Clearly, you're some kind of mutant."

I thought he winced at my comment, but before I could question his pained look it was replaced by a mischievous grin. "Then maybe ___you_ should be helping ___me_ warm up."

I squealed as he pushed me against a tree and slid his hand under my shirt, ghosting his icy fingers against my rib cage. I tried to squirm out of his grasp, but he continued to tickle my sides, laughing maniacally as I giggled and pleaded for him to stop.

And then it happened again. Our eyes met and he froze, his hand, warmer now, still resting above my hip, his mouth so close to mine that I was carried away by his sweet scent of cinnamon and snow. His breathing deepened to match mine, and the look of desire in his eyes was so intense that I could not help believing that this time, unlike all the other times, he was really going to kiss me. _Please . . . _My eyelids fluttered shut of their own accord.

But, of course, he didn't. He turned away abruptly, shoving me against the rough bark of the tree as though he wanted to put as much distance between us as possible. I swallowed the inevitable disappointment as he cleared his throat and kicked at some rocks on the field.

"So, uh . . . you started that book I lent you?" I wished he would at least look at me.

"Finished it. It was no ___Wuthering Heights_, but I was a little inspired." Fortunately, I'd regained my composure enough to talk at least semi-coherently, and I _had_ enjoyed the book—I loved literature as much as Edward loved music—but, to be honest, I wasn't feeling particularly high-minded at that precise moment. I was tracing the subtly defined muscles of his upper arms with my eyes, thankful that I had taken his jacket. I was imagining running a fingertip along the perfect line of his jaw and then pressing his lips to mine, gently at first . . .

___This is ridiculous. Why don't I just _talk___to him?_Something inside me snapped and I interrupted him, forcing our conversation to a halt.

"Edward."

"Yes, love?" He glanced down at me curiously.

___Oh God, oh God. _As soon as he looked at me, my frustration evaporated and I suddenly remembered why I hadn't asked him about this before. ___Oh, right, I'm terrified__. _I felt a twinge of panic in my gut, but I forged ahead.

"You don't kiss me. Or really touch me or—anything. You say you love me, you hold my hand, you cuddle me for hours, my friends say you look at me like I'm something to eat, and it seems like maybe you want me but then . . ." I trailed off lamely.

He had recoiled a little, and was staring at me with an open expression of panic. "Bella, I—it's not—I do . . . want you. It's—"

___He wants me! _

I guess, in retrospect, I wasn't reading the signs very well. All I heard was "I want you" and I ignored everything else. I practically attacked him, shoving him against the tree, wrapping my arms around his cool neck and crushing my lips to his. He tasted just like he smelled, of winter and spice. At first, I felt his muscles tense, but he relaxed and moaned into me as my tongue caressed his bottom lip.

I pushed my tongue into his mouth and he growled deeply. Without warning, he wrenched me around so that I was against the tree, pressing the length of his body into me and forcing his leg between mine. His tongue invaded my mouth and I moaned violently, pushing the growing heat in my core against his thigh. He brushed the hair away from my face and I shivered as he ran his tongue down my neck, ending in a deep kiss in the hollow above my collarbone.

And then something happened that I didn't understand, something that I had never felt before. It originated at my neck but spread to my fingertips and toes, like an orgasm growing each time my heart beat, only intolerably more sweet and throbbing and all over my body. I gasped as the intense pleasure pulsed through me, and Edward snarled in response.

"___Fuck_, Edward," I moaned, not knowing or caring what he could be doing to make me feel this way.

As soon as I said his name, he gave off a stifled cry and leapt away from me. I reached toward him, but he had vanished.

___Vanished?_

Absently, I brushed my fingers across a wet spot at the base of my neck and my breath caught when I saw what was on my hand. I looked down at Edward's jacket.

___It was covered in blood__. _

_*****_

**Reviews rock my socks for three straight blocks!**


	2. Revelations and Invitations

**A/N: This is a somewhat reworked version of my original chapter in response to some of the helpful criticism I received from reviewers. It still ends up in the same place. **

**Bella's POV:**

My head spun, and I let myself slide down the trunk of the tree until I was sitting on the grass.

_Blood? _Maybe that was why Edward left so quickly. He said he couldn't stand the sight of it, and from the way I'd seen him act around it before, I thought it made him nauseous.

That meant that, even if Edward did come back, I'd have to do my own first aid. I felt around the collar of Edward's jacket, and it seemed the blood was already dry. I was surprised that the cut had healed over so quickly, but when I searched my neck with my fingers, I could still feel the unmistakeable shape of the scab: two half moons, less than an inch apart.

Bite marks. Edward had bitten right through my skin. _Shouldn't that have hurt? _

More to the point, why would Edward—gentle, polite, and thoughtful Edward—bite me so hard that I bled all over his jacket? Believe me, I knew there were plenty of freaks in the world, but I also knew Edward, and in three months of dating he had never done anything to suggest he might be one of them.

Until now, anyway. I reached up to rub at my scab, and—_What?—_my stomach flipped as my fingers traced the unbroken skin above my collar bone where the scab _had_ _been_. It had, impossibly, vanished. Sort of like Edward had.

Edward, who was always cold. Whose eyes changed colour from green to almost red. Who moved all of the furniture into my dorm room by himself without even breaking a sweat. Who could read my facial expressions, even in the dark . . .

_He's not human_, I thought numbly.

Clearly, I had gone insane.

But I wasn't afraid of my delusions, like a crazy person ought to be. I felt, if anything, calmer than I had in a while. Everything fit together now, all the little things I had been trying to ignore that should have made me wonder if maybe Edward was something _more_.

I needed to see him, to see if it was real. I was still a little dizzy when I stood up, but it wasn't far from the park to Edward's house.

When I got there, the front door was open, and someone inside was yelling. I stood in the doorway, not sure if I should knock or just go in.

"What did you _think_ was going to happen, Edward?" It was Carlisle. "There's never a 'right time' to tell someone you're a monster, is there? Did you honestly think a girl like Bella could love you once she found out what you were? What you wanted to do with her?"

"Fuck you, Carlisle!" The anguish in Edward's voice made my chest feel tight. _Of course I still love you. _But what did he want to do to me?

"Come on, Edward. What were you going to do? Put it in a note? Roses are red, violets are blue, I'm a fucking _vampire_?"

_Vampire_. It echoed in the blank space of my mind.

Vampires were supposed to be evil. They were supposed to be dangerous killers. They were supposed to be _imaginary_.

Edward wasn't any of those things. But the word made sense all the same, cementing the pieces of the puzzle that had come together for me in the park.

"Vampire." I murmured it to myself.

Then I noticed there was silence in the kitchen. "Bella?" Edward's voice was tentative.

I came inside and found him in the kitchen, gazing at me from across the island with misery in his eyes and a smear of blood across his cheek. Nervously, he ran a hand through his tousled hair.

"Uh, hi Carlisle." I hovered in the kitchen doorway like an idiot, tracing the tiles with my toes as Carlisle nodded to me and tactfully exited the scene. I cleared my throat.

"You came back," he said, soft amazement in his tone. His blatant disbelief stung a bit.

"Of course I did. But it's true?" I needed to hear him say it.

"Yes." His voice was thick with unshed tears. "Bella, I'm so sorry."

"You're . . . You, uh, like blood."

He exhaled slowly. "I wish that were all."

"Tell me."

"It's more than just liking it. I _need_ it, Bella. Not to live, but I have this drive to _taste_ it sometimes . . . . It can be hard to control." He turned his face away. "And I'm different in other ways. I guess you saw that I'm faster than regular people, and maybe some of my senses are better." He hesitated. "That's all you need to know, really."

A thought occurred to me, and I had to cut in. "Will I become one now that you've—"

"No. It's nothing like that."

"How much of the stories people tell are true? Are you, like, afraid of crucifixes?"

"No." He made some kind of slightly hysterical sound; I couldn't tell if he was laughing or crying—his face was still turned away. I felt a desperate need to lighten the mood.

"Garlic?"

"No."

"Eternal life?"

"No, thank God."

"Super strength?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Super speed but not super strength? What gives?"

"Um . . . I never really thought about it." He glanced up at me from beneath his eyelashes. "You're still here."

"What do you mean I'm still here?"

"I thought, once you knew . . ."

"You thought I was going to _leave_ you? I _love_ you, Edward. . . . Don't you know what that means? If this is who you are, then okay, we'll deal with it. I just wish you'd told me—"

"Bella—" he looked up finally, and his russet eyes met mine. "You're so—I don't deserve you." He looked away again.

He looked so vulnerable and beautiful that I couldn't help myself. I leaned across the counter to wipe the blood smear off his cheek, but he flinched as though I'd tried to hit him. "There's one more thing."

I waited.

"Why I haven't kissed you or . . . anything. When I'm close to you, when I'm, well, aroused"—he formed the word with difficulty—"it's like this monster wakes up inside of me and I want to, _need _to taste your blood. And it's worse. I get . . . violent, I guess. I feel like I have to exercise my power over you. Like I'm . . . compelled to do things to you, just to make sure that you really are _mine_." His voice grew rough and quiet as he spoke. "To mark you, to bend you to my will, to make you scream my name—in pain or pleasure, it wouldn't matter. I'd hurt you, I'd force you, I'd watch you beg, and I'd enjoy every fucking _second _of it." His whisper was almost a growl.

He shook his head slightly as if to clear his thoughts, and spat out his words with distaste. "Understand, I would never seriously injure you, I feel too _possessive _of you for that. But even I'm not sure what else I would do." He took a deep breath. "I understand if you want to leave now."

For a moment I sat perfectly still, forgetting even to breathe. Dark images filled my head of Edward, growling as he pinned me to the bed. Shoving me roughly against a wall. Forcing me to my knees before him and moaning as he fucked my mouth. Tasting my blood, spreading that feeling of tense, pulsing sweetness from my heart to my fingertips. Licking my bright red juices off his pale, perfect lips. The more I thought about it, the more my body seemed to like the idea.

_This is supposed to be the _bad_ news?_

"Bella?" he spoke hesitantly. "Are you okay?"

I had been with Edward for months, and the mysterious brooding act was wearing thin. It was time to meet the real Edward and the supposed "monster" he'd been hiding. I lifted his chin so he would look me in the eye, hoping a smile would communicate just how very "okay" I was.

I was tired of waiting and wondering.

"Show me."

**Reviews still make me grin like a fool!**


	3. You Just Might Get It

**A/N: I do not own Edward, Bella, or anything related to Twilight, believe it or not.**

**This chapter gets a little more, um, intense. Don't say I didn't warn you.**

**Edward's POV:**

"I understand if . . . if you want to leave." I closed my eyes, knowing that when I opened them she would be gone. I felt so tense I thought I was going to burst out of my own skin. I wanted to vomit, to leap straight through the kitchen window and run forever, to never move another muscle and just will myself to stop existing. _Seriously, what's the point to my being here, skulking around the planet expecting no-one to figure out what I really am?_ As if to prove my point, the monster flashed me another image of my Bella covered in those fucking sexy bloodstains. Carlisle was right, what the fuck _was_ I thinking? _Your injuries give me a hard-on. Wanna go steady?_

Didn't matter. She would be gone now. I opened my eyes.

She was still sitting there, her face completely blank, like Little Red Riding Hood, just discovered the wolf in disguise.

"Bella?" Had this sudden revelation somehow left her comatose? "Are you okay?"

And then she smiled wickedly and said, "Show me."

_Show you what?_She could _not_ be asking what I thought she was. I just stared at her, like some kind of stupid fish.

She blushed as dark as a fucking raspberry and, even though this was one extremely dire situation in my emotional life, I had to grip my stool tightly as the monster pulled me toward her smooth skin and all the blood that was visible beneath. _Just a taste. So sweet. _I leaned forward just a little.

"Edward, look." I snapped back to reality, the monster returning to its lair at the back of my mind. "I _am_ yours, and I want to prove it to you. And _you_are mine, and I want to know you. _All_ of you. So if you're telling me there's this part of yourself that you've been hiding, I want you to show it to me."

I just gaped at her, keeping up my stupid fish impression.

She blushed even deeper and my cock stirred. "Unless you don't want—"

"No." That was so like my Bella; anything goes wrong and she thinks the problem is her. "I promise, I definitely want—"

"Then come upstairs." She took my hand, leading in the direction of my room. Even dry, the smell of her blood on my jacket made me crazy, and the monster and I breathed in her scent together.

She backed through the bedroom doorway and took off the jacket, her wide eyes never moving from my face, broadcasting her desire and her . . . trust. She trusted me so completely. _Stupid little girl_, the monster chuckled. I pushed him away, but he was right. She didn't understand. I had to stop this. _Why wasn't I stopping this?_ "Bella—"

"It's okay, Edward." Her soothing voice lulled the monster and I. "I can give this to you. I _want_ to give this to you." Her small fingertips lightly brushed the side of my face. _So warm._ I felt a surge in my cock and the monster growled quietly. I gave in and brushed her lips with mine, softly and gently, and sucked lightly on her bottom lip. Wanting her to feel my love, my tenderness, before . . .

Before I couldn't show her anymore.

I felt her tongue brush mine, so _warm_, soft, wet, and I heard moaning. Hers? Mine? Her little hands at the back of my neck. Her body, closer, falling onto the bed, the firm yield of her breasts against my chest. Her sweet vanilla scent all around me, and her darker blood scent of copper, chocolate, and wine. I took her hips into my hands and shivered when she rubbed her core against me. _Fuck yes._ The monster and I gripped her harder and she moaned magnificently, pulled me closer, and bit into my neck, bringing just enough pain.

_Oh, Bella, you shouldn't have done that. _The monster snarled viciously, the sound reverberating through my body and the room as I groped roughly under her shirt, my other hand unclasping her bra. Fabric tore. Exposed in her simple black underwear, Bella shuddered: desire or fear? The monster didn't care which, and, unbelievably, my straining hardness grew.

_Yes, _nudged the monster. _Drink her._

_Go away. _He would not control me.

_No harm, just a little. _I closed my eyes against her caresses and imagined her soft neck yielding to my bite like the flesh of a peach, her rich metallic warmth pulsing onto my tongue. _Delicious, yes._

_**No. **_Furious, I wrenched control from the demon that would make my Bella bleed.

A loud crunch startled me, breaking the spell of my anger. One hand was on Bella's breast . . . _mmm_ . . . but where was my other hand? I followed the line of my arm and the gaze of Bella's wide eyes to discover it embedded in the dark oak headboard. I broke the bed? Why did I _do_ that? I pulled my hand out of the hole, apparently unharmed—okay, so maybe I had a _little_ super-strength—and brushed a piece of plaster off of Bella's forehead.

Her eyes were so big and dark. The tropical scent of her arousal was now _very_ apparent to me, along with the salty smell of her fear, and her blood pulsing so fast I could almost taste it. The monster licked his lips and smiled a predatory grin at my girl.

"I trust you," she said, more to herself than to me.

_You shouldn't._

I leaned in, I thought to kiss her, but when our faces were almost touching the monster snapped his teeth right next to her cheek. Her breathing quickened in my ear. I ran my tongue past her jaw and down her neck—caressing or tasting?—brushing the tiny hairs on her delicate skin, and she shivered. I bit lightly onto her neck, not quite enough to break the skin, and she whimpered just a little.

_Patience, my love, I will have you soon enough. _My hand gripped her breast, too hard, I thought, but she moaned and arched her back, rubbing her peak into my palm. I slapped her tits—no, Edward, her _breasts_, you _can't_—and I licked my lips as they shook under my hand.

"_Eager, aren't we, love?" _I didn't recognize my voice, so cold and condescending. I couldn't control my speech, so I caressed her cheek, hoping she could feel the love in my fingertips.

The monster slapped her. "_Answer me."_ She nodded with a whimper.

"_Good girl,_" I sneered, and whipped her around so that we leaned together against the headboard, her bare skin against my jeans, her perfect ass pressing right into my cock, the pulsing vein of her neck right next to my face. I wrapped my arms around her small frame.

_Mine_, the monster and I agreed, and I trailed my fingers down her stomach, reaching into her underwear. She moaned my name, grinding against my length as she pushed her core toward my hand. We both gasped lightly as my touch met her warm, soft folds. I dipped a finger into her core, momentarily resisting the urge to taste, and traced light circles around her clit, reveling in her frustration.

She thrust towards my too-slow fingers. "_Hold still,"_ I growled. She would do this _my_ way.

"Please, Edward." I _liked_ how she said my name. "_Please what, my love?"_ My voice dripped with false innocence. I increased the pressure of my fingers, and she writhed and shuddered under my hand. _Yes, you feel what I _make_you feel._

"I want you inside me, Edward. I need to be _yours_. Please," she cried breathlessly.

"_Silly Bella. You're already mine," _I snarled, ripping off her underwear as I pushed her roughly onto the bedspread. I pinned her wrists together with one hand, opening my jeans with the other. _God_, I ached for her.

We both cried out as I entered her, battling with the monster to be gentle for at least this one moment. _Tight. Warm. _I braced myself for the smell of fresh blood, but it never came. _My_ Bella, not a virgin? At the thought of someone else this close to her, breathing on her, pawing her, _fucking_ her, all my restraint vanished and only the monster remained.

I snarled like a fucking wolverine. It was glorious. I felt so strong, so powerful, so absolutely _alive_.

I dragged my fingernails down her back, leaving angry red lines, and she moaned and arched under my touch. _Mine._

I thrust into her deeply, so deep I thought she would break, and she thrust back against me, crying for more. _All Mine._

I dragged her up by her hair, bending her backwards so that she became impossibly tighter, and snarled again, directly into her ear. "_Who do you belong to?"_

"_Fuck_, Edward, I'm yours!" I felt my impending release, and at the sound of my name I knew there was no turning back. My teeth tore into the wound at her collarbone, and I slurped her juices like a starving animal. _So sweet, so dark. _She called my name again and again as she came around me, and I went with her, lost to the heavy black throb of her surging blood.

* * *

When I opened my eyes, I was alone. Why were my feet on the pillows and my head at the foot of the bed? I surveyed my bedroom, mystified. The headboard was broken and jagged wood chips were scattered on the floor. The comforter was misted with blood, and a few drops clung to the windowsill. A pillow had been torn apart and there were feathers everywhere. It looked like someone had started a fistfight at a voodoo sacrifice. Still dazed, I smirked at the image.

And then I remembered. Bella.

_Bella's_blood all over my bed.

Bella's mangled clothes lying limply on my floor.

Somewhere, Bella would be crying, bruised and terrified. Horrified by the nightmare creature whose black desires she had witnessed. Horrified by _me_ and by my love.

I reached for the cord and closed the blinds on my window, burying my face into the Bella-scented bedspread. There should be darkness in a monster's lair.

**Oh Edward, you're so melodramatic.**

**I have the next two chapters more or less planned out, but I haven't decided precisely what to do after that (although I have many, many ideas), so if you have thoughts or suggestions, I'd love to hear them.**

**Review! It's so easy and it makes my day! If you liked it, tell me why. If you didn't like it, tell me why!**


	4. Everything I Wanted

**A/N: And Now for Something Completely Different.**

**I thought it was probably about time to explain what was going on, and this chapter just kind of . . . happened. It's citrus-free, but it requires its own WARNING for violence and death.**

**And I'd like to add another reminder that these are NOT TWILIGHT CANON-STYLE VAMPIRES. If you expect them to be, you will be very, very surprised and confused.**

**Disclaimer: I own nothing of any value.**

**Carlisle's POV:**

"Shit." There is a bottle of scotch in the bottom drawer of my desk, and I pour myself a generous glass before I relax into the leather and put my feet up on the dark oak desktop. "Shit," I say again to the empty room and, taking a swallow, turn my chair to face the corner closet.

I eye the closet for a few minutes, then, slamming my empty glass on the table, get up and freeze with my hand resting on the handle.

_Just do it fast. Like a band-aid. For Edward_. I jerk the door open and cough as I breathe in a cloud of dust.

Five years worth of dust. I haven't opened this closet for five years. _And you can close it again in a minute if you just get what you came for_. The beat-up wooden trunk on the closet floor is large and bulky, but I have no difficulty carrying it out.

I go to shut the door, but, before I can stop it, I find my hands doing exactly what I promised myself they wouldn't do: shuffling around the boxes of my old research, looking for a small, lilac-colored hat box.

I find it in the back corner of the highest shelf. There are paper boxes all over the floor, but I ignore them, return to my desk, and pour another scotch.

I lift the purple lid and there it is, the light scent of honeysuckle and apple blossoms that I would recognize anywhere.

Esme.

I lift out a sheer yellow scarf, the material soft and slight in my hands.

She was wearing this the day we met, golden boy and golden girl, at one of my parents' parties. I had never even heard of vampires, and my world was full of promise and light. I had just finished my doctorate at Yale, where I had already made a bit of a name for myself with a study of acute leukemia in children, the surprising results of which would soon be used to save lives. I was home for the summer before beginning a research position with the American Institute of Hematology, and I felt like I could do everything and have anything I wanted.

And I knew exactly what I wanted the moment I saw Esme. She was talking to one of my father's friends and leaning with casual poise against a bookcase in my father's study. Her hair fell in tidy, perfect blond ringlets, and she held a glass of white wine in her hand. She laughed, her laughter light and full of joy, and when she turned her head, her shining blue eyes met mine.

My father's friend introduced us. She was studying social work at Berkeley; her father was, like mine, a surgeon; she played the violin. Hungrily, I devoured each scrap of information she gave me, enraptured by every delicate gesture of her hands. She asked about my research, and her curiosity and quick understanding amazed me.

The rhododendron garden in my parents' back yard was in full bloom, and we sat there together on the grass for hours, talking about our hopes and dreams until the sun had set and hunger forced us to venture inside. On the way in, her scarf caught on a branch, and I slipped it into my pocket. I never told her that I kept it all those years.

I place the slip of fabric delicately, almost reverently, on the desk, and I remove from the hat box a black and white photograph taken six months after I stole the scarf. Esme is outside the church in her wedding dress, stepping into our limousine. She is radiant, and beautiful, and full of love, laughing in a shower of small white flower petals. She has one arm inside the car, holding my hand.

I look at that picture a little longer before I place it next to the scarf.

The next picture is of an ultrasound, a baby girl. Rosalie would have been her name, if she had lived.

The next picture is also an ultrasound, twins this time, who would have been named Jasper and Emmett. We stopped trying after that.

Strange to think, now, that it was Esme, not me, who found Edward. A social worker who often dealt with problem children, she was asked to meet a seven year old boy who had been found under unusual circumstances in his own home. There were three deaths: the boy's parents, upstairs, clearly killed by blunt objects, and, in the living room, the body of an intruder who appeared to have bled to death from an impossibly small neck wound. The boy, they said, was found next to this last body, covered in blood and hugging his knees to his chest. He refused to speak or move, and they had to carry him from the scene.

When Esme entered the narrow hospital room, it was love at first sight. Even under the oppressive fluorescent lights with his head hanging and his feet dangling limply off the bed, he was the most adorable child she had ever seen. She felt, she told me, an incredible need to take him home and care for him. She called this need maternal instinct, although eventually I began to suspect it had much more to do with Edward than with her.

By this time, my successes at the AIH—not to mention the sizable family legacy my father had passed on to me—had netted me more than a little power and prestige, so it was not long before Edward was a part of our family. Once he had overcome the initial shock of the loss of his parents and whatever else he witnessed at the murder scene—information which he never shared despite Esme's best efforts—he was actually quite a precocious child, cheerful and perceptive.

Esme and I blithely indulged him, as did his teachers and even his friends, to an extent that would have completely spoiled a lesser child, but Edward seemed to grow only more generous and patient as he was surrounded by affection. I often wondered later, when I knew the truth about him, was our behavior simply the natural response to a beautiful, brilliant, kind, and serious little boy, or was it something . . . preternatural that infatuated us all?

Perhaps we really were responding to Edward's physical perfection and his social and intellectual grace, but these could also have been merely side-effects of his condition. In the coming years, I was to test Edward for every measurable property, but I would never discern where the vampire ended and the human began.

But before I was plagued with such questions, Esme, Edward, and I had a few exquisite years. Camping trips, piano recitals, stories at bedtime—everything Esme and I had dreamed about and been cruelly denied twice before. All with this amazing child, who grew stronger and wiser daily.

I thought that I would have given anything for my beautiful wife and my beautiful boy. But _would_ I still have chosen this perfect family if I had known what was to come?

Who knows? In the end, my safe little world came crashing down, piece by piece.

Edward was fourteen. One Friday in June, Esme's birthday, I came home early so I could surprise her with a romantic candlelit dinner. When I came into the kitchen, I couldn't even process what I saw. It almost looked like Edward was only cuddling with the neighbors' dog, who was wagging her tail as Edward stroked her belly and pressed his face into her neck.

Almost, except for the puddle of blood that was growing beneath them.

Edward looked up when he heard my bag of groceries hit the floor. His chin was smeared with blood. My stomach heaved in disgust. The dog fled the room to escape the tension as we stared at each other in horror. Her paw brushed against the paper bag, and an orange rolled out, landing in the dark red pool.

Finally, when eye contact became simply too unbearable, Edward wiped his face with his sleeve and stood, deliberately slowly. He placed the bag on the counter and, grabbing a handful of paper towels, began to mop up the floor. He picked up the dripping orange and moved toward the sink, apparently to rinse it off, but he must have heard the small, strangled sound I made because he turned to the garbage instead.

Apart from that tiny noise, I stood motionless and speechless while he removed all evidence of our encounter with practiced efficiency. At last, he surveyed the spotless tile and removed the bag from the kitchen garbage, tying it tightly and heading out toward the driveway.

He paused as he reached the kitchen doorway. He said, in a low whisper I could barely hear, "It wasn't hurting her."

I opened my mouth to answer, but he was already, impossibly, gone.

For the weekend, Edward managed to avoid our inevitable conversation by disappearing whenever possible and latching onto Esme when it was necessary to be at home. But he couldn't keep it up forever; on Monday morning, I was the one to drive him to school.

He climbed into the passenger seat and stared out the window. Clearly he would not be the one to speak first. Now that it was time to actually talk, I found myself increasingly tempted by the coward's response, to say nothing and leave Edward to his own devices. I was approaching Forks High.

_No, Carlisle, he's your son. You have to know._ I passed the school parking lot and Edward nervously ran his hand through his hair.

But what should I say? _Tasted any good pets lately?_ "Edward." I took a deep breath. "I need an explanation."

"I think you should let it go, Carlisle." His voice held a dark edge that I had never heard before.

It was never a problem that Edward always called me Carlisle, never Dad, but for some reason it bothered me now. I pulled the car over. "I am your _father_, goddammit. Talk. "

"Fine." He ran his hands through his hair again. "I drink blood," he said flatly.

"Uh, I think I'm going to need a little more than that."

And so he explained, slowly at first, but soon he was gripped by the relief of finally sharing his secret and told me, I think, more than he intended. That he had felt, for as long as he could remember, a drive to taste blood, but that it had grown as he had aged. That, most of the time, he could restrain it, but sometimes it possessed him so entirely that he could think of nothing else, do nothing else, until he had given in.

He told me that after he drank the world was so vivid, so beautiful, but if he went without blood too long sensations were muted, colors turned gray, and food tasted like dust. That the thirst was often accompanied by violent urges, sometimes so strong that he would sit completely still for hours, with his fists clenched and his muscles tensed, unable to risk movement until the feeling passed.

He told me of the first time he remembered tasting blood, when he was four and impulsively bit his mother's wrist. Of the miraculous feeling of peace and power, intensity and release. Of his parents' initial horror and their gradual acceptance.

He told me that, apart from that time and a few tantrums when he had bitten his father, he had not consumed human blood, even though it provided much greater satisfaction. He gained the trust of animals as easily as he gained the love of those around him, and he learned to coax neighborhood pets to sit patiently as he drank from them. He never harmed them, he promised me, instinctively knowing when to stop if he wanted to preserve a creature's health.

He told me how difficult it was to keep the secret. When he was a young child, normal human movements had seemed painfully slow to him, but his parents had impressed upon him the absolute necessity of matching the speed of others. Before he knew better, he had expressed profound delight or disgust over scents that nobody else could even detect. He was frustrated by the growing difficulty of concealing his desire to bite, especially when people blushed or came very close. At school, he pretended a strong aversion to blood, turning away even from paper cuts in order to contain his need.

As I listened, my fear and shock were overshadowed by fascination. I knew my colleagues would laugh me out of the building if I came to them exclaiming that vampires were real, but even if I could never share my discoveries, I had to understand for myself the nature of Edward's biology.

At first, Edward was reluctant to participate in my experiments, but he seemed more willing as it became apparent that my scientific curiosity wholly eclipsed any emotional aversion to the aberrations Edward had been concealing.

First, we tested his speed, so fast that it was difficult to measure.

Next, his strength, much less impressive, but still above average; he wouldn't be leaping tall buildings in a single bound or stopping moving vehicles with one hand, but by the time he was fifteen I would have liked his chances in a fight with anyone—bodybuilder, karate master, or otherwise.

His hearing was only slightly better than average, but his eyesight and sense of smell were remarkable. His sense of touch, too, appeared to be abnormally acute. He could run his thumb across a piece of cotton and count the threads, or stand in the backyard and name every ingredient Esme was using to cook Sunday dinner.

I challenged him to see how long he could go without human food, surviving only on blood. That was a mistake; after only three weeks, he was unrecognizably arrogant and aggressive, skipping classes, starting fights in the hallway, hitting on girls in a manner I considered much too forward, especially for his age. His senses became sharper and his strength grew exponentially, however, so it took me several more weeks to persuade him to return to a diet that included human food.

Intrigued by these changes in behavior, I asked him to see how long he could live on food, foregoing blood altogether. After the first week he was so irritable and melancholy that I simply avoided him and Esme found him exhausting, complaining to me about the dramatic effects of adolescent hormones. He lasted a month, which suggested to me that, if he wished, he could live that way indefinitely, but I will admit that I was grateful when he came down to breakfast with subtle color in his cheeks, returned to his previous self.

At night, I often brought samples of his blood to the lab, spending many sleepless hours trying to determine what it was that made him different.

I found nothing to explain his impossibly low body temperature, his ability to remain perfectly comfortable in heat or cold, or his ability to heal wounds so quickly that you could watch it happen. I couldn't be sure, since I couldn't determine the cause of his healing, but I suspected there was little, apart from old age, that could permanently damage his health.

Unable to find any significant anomalies other than a spectacularly well-functioning immune system—he had never been sick, as far as I knew—I began to wonder if the cause of his condition must be psychological, not physiological.

I wondered, that is, until it occurred to me to test his saliva. Not often, but occasionally, he fed in my presence, and one day as I was watching him drink from a rat, I realized that the animal bled without dying for much longer than ought to be possible.

I stole into the lab at night with a swab, the contents of which I discovered not to be saliva at all, but some kind of venom. When mixed with blood, it demonstrated a number of curious properties. Most noticeable was that, when it made contact with the venom, the blood tripled in volume. I still do not fully understand the workings of this process, but its ability to increase the enjoyment and sustenance obtained from feeding is clearly apparent.

Edward's venom became a source of endless fascination for me. Its composition changed according to Edward's mood and the thoughts he had when he produced it. Anger and fear produced blood thinners and acidic substances that would cause great pain and increase the likelihood of the victim's death, while love and comfort produced beta-endorphins and other substances that dulled pain, promoted healing, and encouraged positive emotions.

Little did I know how extremely relevant to my own life these experiments would become.

Would things have been any different if I had told Esme in the beginning? It wasn't as though I didn't try. I began so many times, but I just didn't have it in me to destroy her illusion of our perfect life, her perfect son. If I had told her the truth, would it have been easier for her to accept my frequent late-night absences for surreptitious experiments, my absent-minded obsessiveness, my dependence on Edward as lab rat and constant companion?

Maybe I had already lost her when I chose to shield her from my secret world. Maybe honesty could have preserved our relationship for a few more years.

But no, it could not have prevented what happened in the end.

My experiments progressed until it became clear that I needed more than one sample to make any definitive claims. Edward, too, was thrilled by the possibility of meeting others like himself, who would understand who and what he was. We scoured all kinds of sources, from tabloids to volumes of folklore, searching for some indication of where to look.

Eventually, this obsession overshadowed my work with the AIH, and I was gently persuaded to resign. I told Esme I thought my research could be accomplished perfectly well from home.

My patient, understanding wife could see that talking about my resignation upset me, and she didn't press for details.

My office was strewn with pizza boxes, dirty plates, and stacks of paper, and I spent most of my time holed up in there. Usually, Edward would come in when he got home, and we would read and talk for hours. Every once in a while, the smell would grow too irritating for him, and Edward would haul my garbage into the kitchen.

Gentle and forgiving as always, Esme accepted silently as we became more and more distant from her. Caught up in my fascination, I did not notice the light and laughter fading from her eyes.

By this time, at sixteen, Edward was a much faster reader and quicker intellect than I, and it did not surprise me that he was the first to discover a possible lead on the location of his vampire brethren.

In the mountains close to Forks, there had been several reports of mysterious animal attacks. The victims, both human and animal, were wholly drained of blood.

Esme did not question our desire to go hiking together, and by this time I don't think it even seemed strange to her that she was not invited to join us.

I would have been completely lost in the woods, and Edward, in his excitement, grew exasperated with my slow speed. Fortunately, we only needed to travel a few hours, and Edward's superior senses led us directly to the mouth of a cave.

I could see no evidence of inhabitation, but Edward assured me that this was where he—she? they?—lived. "Hello?" I called out. "We mean no—"

"Harm?" a fluid voice asked wryly. I turned to see a lanky young man standing uncomfortably close behind me, his long hair drawn back in a ponytail. I looked into his empty, bright red eyes and a wave of nausea hit me as I realized how terribly naïve we had been to come here.

There was no civility in those eyes, but I decided to forge ahead as though this was the friendly meeting Edward and I had so foolishly predicted. "My name is Carlisle Cullen, and this is my son Edward."

The stranger raised his eyebrow at my outstretched hand, but extended a few fingers and shook it lightly. "James, and this is Victoria." He gestured languidly to a red-haired woman leaning against a tree a few feet away. "And to what do we owe the . . . pleasure of your acquaintance?"

His gaze settled on my neck and my pulse raced. _What was I thinking, bringing Edward to meet these—these _murderers _as though they were kindred spirits?_ My usually articulate speech evaporated as James licked his lips and drifted closer. "I . . . um . . ."

Edward stepped into the very small space between James and I. He smiled a sneering, toothy smile chillingly similar to the one on the face of my predator. "We had reason to believe that I have much in common with you and your friend. I am . . . curious about our kind, and thought we might speak." The usual easy smoothness of his voice was magnified to match the flow of James's speech.

A dark guffaw erupted from James's throat. "You, who fancy yourself a human, pretending at weakness and spending your days shut up in dusty rooms? I can smell it on you, the stench of human food, of routine and obedience. No, we have nothing in common."

He turned to me, sidestepping Edward. "You have no idea what he is missing, what a coward he is, your _son_. He could be a king in this forest, stronger than any of the animals, if he just left behind your tiny, sniveling world. Feeling more, knowing more, taking more, _being_more, he could be more free, more powerful, more beautiful than you can even imagine. And yet he clings to your pathetic little race! Hilarious, don't you think?" He was very close now, his rotten breath brushing my cheek. I stood my ground, willing my heart to stop pounding, the blood churning loudly in my ears.

"But _you_ . . ." He placed his hand firmly on my upper arm. "_You_ are a curious man, a courageous man to come to our lair. Perhaps _you_ would not waste such a gift."

Edward growled, an ominous, animal sound.

"Don't be ridiculous, Edward." James said offhandedly as he smoothed my shirt collar. "We have been living exclusively on blood for years now, and we are several times stronger than you have ever been. Can you possibly think you could ever pose a threat to us?"

Edward took a step back, his shoulders hunched but his fists still clenched.

"Yes, that's right. We are all friends here." He patted my cheek condescendingly. "Which is why I would like to present our human guest—Carlisle, is it?—with the choice of a lifetime. I _am_, going to bite you, I'm sure you realize that."

I nodded. There was no sense denying it.

"But I doubt you know that the effect my bite has on you depends entirely on my whim, and therein lies your choice. You can choose to remain prey, and I would be more than happy to show you the hospitality any _real _vampire would show a human visitor." He licked his lips and raised his eyebrows suggestively. "Or, if you would like, I can make you one of us. But I will not allow you to straddle the line like that feeble worm you call a son.

"I'll give you a few moments to decide: predator, or prey?"

I wish I could say that my decision was merely an act of desperation, that the possibility of transforming into a creature like this James repulsed me, that I would have agreed to anything to get home to my wife and my home.

But the truth is that I wanted him to do it. I had spent years now looking into this strange and glittering world from the outside, and I wanted _in_.

The truth is that I wasn't trying to get back to the ordinariness of my life. I was trying to leave it behind.

"Predator." My voice was quiet but sure.

There was a rush of air next to me, and I saw the blurred forms of Edward and Victoria, moving so quickly I could barely see them. In seconds it was over, and Edward was lying crumpled and unconscious at the mouth of the cave.

Victoria eyed me distastefully and crossed her arms. "Please finish up, darling. I'm getting terribly bored."

"Of course, dearest. Only I do find this part so very . . . fascinating . . ." He caressed the side of my face and I quivered with terror—but also with anticipation.

Instantly, I was pinned against the rock wall of the cave. He held my wrists above my head with one hand, his knee pressing into my thigh to hold me in place. I turned my face away from his, so very close. He extended his tongue and licked wetly up my exposed carotid artery. I shuddered.

And then he bit down.

At first it was . . . ecstasy. Spasms of giddy release, all self-restraint flowing out of me as I relished the powerful pulsing of my own blood.

And then it was pain. Fire, originating at the bite and writhing through my veins, searing me from the inside out. I scratched at the rocks behind me, burning alive. I saw red as the sound of my heartbeat filled my head, and I heard my own strangled screams as though from a distance. I would have fallen to the ground if James had not held me so tightly against him.

And then I _had_ fallen, and James was feet away, my blood dripping from his chin onto his chest. But the pain hadn't stopped. Oh God, would it _ever_ stop? I looked up at James, now crying openly.

He laughed his black, booming laugh. Victoria stood next to him with some kind of limp, disheveled form leaning against her—I couldn't see more than that as the pain blurred my vision.

"What's wrong, Carlisle?" he asked, feigning innocence.

"I can't—pain . . . too much—please" I gasped incoherently.

"You would like to stop the pain, is that it?" he asked.

In any other situation, I would have been offended by his placating tone, but as things were I simply nodded in desperation.

"It's easy," he said, thrusting the limp figure toward me. "This is all you need. Just drink." His words, now surprisingly gentle, soothed me.

My hands were full of human flesh—so incredibly _warm_, almost too warm to touch—and I acted without thought, propelled by instinct alone. I bit into the exposed neck, my teeth sliding easily through the skin and breaking the artery.

My mouth overflowed with blood. Hot, metallic sweetness gushed over my tongue as I gulped like a man who had been dying of thirst. As I swallowed, the searing pain subsided until it was a dull ache, and then was replaced with truly incredible sensation. As good as the ecstatic release I had felt only minutes before, but different.

I was so _awake, _my whole body humming with the energy of the blood, but I also felt as though I was coming to pieces, dissolving into a single-minded voracious need, wanting only more, more, more as I consumed the life that flowed down my grasping throat.

The life finally extinguished, the blood lost most of its flavor, and I slumped, sated, against the stone. My world went black.

Ask anyone who knows me, and he will tell you that I am a good man. I took in an orphan and cared for him as my own. I volunteer and donate to charity. My research has produced cures for God knows how many people.

But I felt more pleasure in taking this one life than I gained from all of those saved lives combined.

When I look back on all the things I've thought and done, that is what chills me the most.

* * *

My new sense of smell woke me. The moist cave; the fresh, bright leaves; a putrid stench of decay; Edward's clean scent and the lingering animal smell of the other two vampires, now gone. I felt like I could taste the sunlight, like I could detect individually every blade of grass and worm in the earth.

And, yes, I began to _feel—_every hair on my cheek responding to the slight breeze, the texture of each pebble beneath me, a rhythmic vibration in the earth. Finally, I opened my eyes and was mesmerized by the vivid, saturated color of the light on the leaves, the deep browns of each granule of dirt and crawling insect beneath me.

The vibrations grew more insistent, and I heard an accompanying scraping sound that piqued my interest. I lifted my head, and there was Edward, digging. His pace was unnaturally fast, I knew, but it felt natural to me.

I moved to go to him, expecting to feel the aftereffects of my ordeal. I was surprised to find that I'd never felt better in my life, so strong, so completely in control of my movements.

"Edward," I began. What was there to say? We both understood everything.

"Go in the cave. Don't look," he said, his voice strained.

And, of course, I looked.

If I thought my improved senses produced remarkable changes in the forest landscape, its effects on the corpse at Edward's feet were even more pronounced.

It was an old man, probably homeless. I could see the fingerprints in the dirt smeared on his sallow face, even the places where Edward had lightly touched him to close his eyes. As I focused on him, I could smell the rum on his breath and the old sweat on his shabby clothes—even over the rotten tang of the blood which had dripped from the wound I had made.

For a moment, I was only thankful that Victoria had chosen someone who would likely not be missed.

And then the guilt hit me right in the gut, visceral and withering. I staggered to a clump of bushes and threw up blood.

Afterward, I went into the cave and sat on a moist, ridged rock. I embraced the cool darkness, closing my eyes and barely breathing. I don't know how long I sat, blank and motionless.

This was what I had wanted. I had chosen this.

Eventually, Edward came in. He took my hand and guided me, like a child, into the light.

When the sunlight touched my face, I realized that I was ravenous. Before I could open my mouth, he thrust a backpack into my hand. In it was a sandwich and a live rabbit.

"Eat both," he said, and I did. I had the sandwich first, and I delighted in the textures made unfamiliar by their new intensity.

Remembering my experiments on Edward, I thought calm thoughts as I drank from the terrified rabbit, and its shivering subsided. Soon, I felt warring instincts; one told me it was time to stop, and another pushed me to continue until every drop was gone. But I was strong, now, in control. I placed the rabbit gently on the ground and it hopped away.

* * *

My house appeared as if in a dream, so much more vivid, more intensely real than it had ever been in my human reality. I touched the doorknob as though it were some foreign object with an unknown purpose.

Esme, apparently on her way out, opened the door before I could. Her surprised smile quickly faded when she saw my face. "Carlisle, your eyes. They're red." She backed into the foyer.

God, she was so beautiful. After years of marriage, the sight of her had grown ordinary, but now, with my vision born again, I saw her as she really was. The delicate curve of her cheekbone, her long, perfect lashes—I could count them from here—and the subtle traces of experience I could only now detect on the skin of her face. I almost fell to the ground, overwhelmed by the intensity of the love I felt for her. So much more than I had been capable of when I was a human.

"Oh, Esme, I have so much to tell you, so much I have been keeping from you! It's a miracle, what has happened to me. You'll never believe it." I followed her into the living room, rambling. "The research I've been doing, it's not on blood diseases at all, at least I think it's not a blood disease, although there is some indication that—it doesn't matter. The point is, Edward's not like—"

"I know all about Edward, Carlisle." Her voice was soft, but there were creases of anger at the corners of her eyes. "And now you too?"

I nodded.

She closed her eyes briefly, and her hands fell to her sides. "I see. Well then, shall we get started on dinner?"

She scuttled away, humming falsely, before I could answer.

* * *

Perhaps because I was older than Edward, the thirst for blood was strong from the very beginning. But the . . . other urges took a few weeks to appear. I was expecting the need for violence, and I chopped a prodigious quantity of wood in the first couple of months as I learned to control myself.

It was the things I wanted to do to Esme that surprised me. Edward had not told me about this. This was different from my need for violence, but just as strong, and just as black.

It was a need for _possession_.

And Esme tried to give me what I needed. She did like the renewed passion, the greater attention and devotion I showed her, but sex itself was a problem. I tried to make it into a game, the kind I soon learned, with the help of the Internet, that many humans played. Hoping the rules would make her more comfortable, I bought all the requisite books and toys.

But Esme was soft, reserved, romantic to the core. She responded to subtle caresses, quiet murmurs, candlelight and kindness. My rough touch hurt her, and she panicked when I held her down. She would not obey, and it enraged me.

And so it always ended the same way. Esme, on one edge of the bed, crying for her lost self-respect and for the tenderness I could not show her. Me, on the other edge of the bed, shaking with the effort of restraining my seething, naked want. Each one of us facing away from the other.

In the end, I was not surprised when one evening I came home late from work and she was not there. She tried longer and more bravely than I could have expected.

* * *

Another thing that Edward didn't tell me is that vampires never forget. I don't know if it is an anomaly merely of the head, or also of the heart, but I love Esme as passionately and miss her as fiercely as I did in the days immediately after she left.

Her delicate spring scent faded from the house eventually, but I can call it to mind any time I wish, as vivid and fresh as ever.

* * *

I swallow the last sip of my scotch, grown cool from the touch of my hand.

There is one more item in the hat box. It's the small envelope that Esme left on the dining room table. It contains her wedding ring and a very short note.

I have only spoken with Esme a few more times since the day she left. Two years ago, she called me to ask for a divorce. She is with another man now, one who can touch her softly and tenderly, with the reverence she deserves. A man to whom it has never occurred to dream of the taste of her blood.

Sometimes all I can do is lock the door to my office and sit very, very still, so fierce is my desire to hunt that man down and show him brutal pain. But most of the time, I am glad that somebody can make her happy if I cannot.

I turn the small envelope over and over in my hand. I do not open it. I know what the note says.

_I love the man you were, Carlisle, but not the thing you have become._

It says that, as vampires, we have within our grasp all manner of sensual pleasures and intensities of feeling, except one. To give love and be loved, the way that Esme and I once loved each other—of that, as creatures of death, we are not worthy.

It says what I already knew, even before she left. _You are a monster. To know you is to loathe you._

It says what Edward already knew, even before I told him. _If you love someone, stay away from her. If you can't do that, at least hide from her who you really are. With the truth, you can only hurt each other._

So why is Edward upstairs in his bedroom with a beautiful girl? And why am I sitting here staring at this battered old trunk?

Could it be that, absurd as it is, knowing what has happened, and reckless as it is, knowing what _will_ happen, that, somehow, we still have . . . hope?

**Please, please, please review. I haven't decided whether or not to include more like this in the future, and I appreciate all kinds of advice. This is my first fanfic and it feels like the reviews people have given me are already helping me improve.**


	5. Careful What You Ask For

**A/N: I don't intend to retell many chapters from more than one POV, but in this case I thought it would be worthwhile to make an exception.**

**Many thanks to Lola84 from Twilighted for lending me her fabulous beta skills.**

**I don't own anything. Not even the computer I used to write this chapter.**

**Bella's POV:**

"No. I promise, I definitely want—"

"Then come upstairs." _Please. I want it too._ I took his hand firmly, and dragged him up the stairs as quickly as I could without looking ridiculous. I wanted to give him as little opportunity as possible to talk me out of it.

His narrow, muscular fingers tightened on mine. Yes, he wanted this. It was fear that was holding him back. But I would show him, we could be brave together.

When we got to his bedroom, I had to let go of his hand, but I kept my eyes on his face, afraid that if I didn't keep some kind of contact he would turn and bolt down the stairs. _This is right. There is nothing to fear_, I tried to tell him with my eyes.

As he watched me take off his jacket, a condescending smirk passed over his face, and for a moment I wondered if I had misjudged his feelings. But when the jacket hit the floor, his expression changed to pure panic. "Bella—"

"It's okay, Edward." If he could only understand, he wouldn't be so afraid. "I can give this to you. I _want_ to give this to you." I raised my arm, ever so slowly, not sure what would happen if I startled him. Finally, I reached his face, and stroked his cheek as gently as I could.

He recoiled slightly, but growled a little. _Yes, let me hear you. _I willed him to relax, to give in.

As if in answer to my silent urging, he moved closer and kissed me. I melted under the tentative caress of his lips as he enveloped me in his cool arms. This was nothing like the forceful kiss in the park, nothing like what I had glimpsed when he spoke to me so roughly in the kitchen downstairs.

I thought suddenly of Jacob's gentlemanly touch, but only for a moment, as Edward's teeth lightly scraped my bottom lip, bringing me back to the sensations of here and now. I shivered at the taste of his tongue, like mint and snow. He moaned, and there was a desperate edge to the sound. _We're getting there._

He grasped me firmly below my shoulders, his fingers wrapping around the backs of my arms. I gripped the ribbed collar of his cotton t-shirt and pulled him down toward me. The bedspread crackled as it broke my fall, and my burning body was caught between the cool firmness of Edward's bed and the cold, hard muscles of his chest.

Edward's bed. _Finally._ I'd thought about it enough times, but I'd never actually been in it.

Edward's body. I ran my hands down his cool, smooth back and felt the tight muscles of his legs through his jeans. He took hold of my sides, pulling me close, but I wanted him closer. I pushed myself against his hard length and he gripped me tighter, the heels of his hands pressing hard against my hip bones. _That's right, a little pain can be a good thing. I'll show you_. I bit down on his neck, sucking his smooth skin between my teeth.

He snarled. _Victory. _The vibrations echoed in my core. His hands slid up my stomach, under my shirt, and my skin recoiled from the coldness, but my body thrust itself toward the urgency of his touch. There was pressure on my back and a ripping sound. I shivered at the sudden coolness of the air, and he tossed aside the clothes he had torn from my body.

So vulnerable, naked before him. I blushed, but I wanted him to see what was his. I shuddered under the intensity of his gaze.

Suddenly, his body went rigid and his expression froze.

I ran my hand lightly down his chest. _What's wrong?_ He closed his eyes tightly, his muscles contracting under my fingertips.

Then slowly, sensually, he relaxed, licking his lips and sliding his hand further up my chest. My clit tingled when his thumb brushed against my breast, his other hand reaching for the back of my head . . .

But then he was rigid again and there was a startling smash. I looked up in the direction of the dust that was settling onto my eyes. He had punched straight through the headboard and into the wall. _What the_ fuck_?_

My breath quickened. _That was . . . unexpected_. And he was _strong_. He hadn't even hurt his hand.

This creature baring his teeth in pleasure at my fright was not the Edward I knew. Edward who opened doors for me. Edward who once stole the key to my dorm room and cleaned everything while I was in class. Edward who took me to a five-star restaurant on our first date.

I had literally dragged him into revealing this creature, but now I felt truly uncertain. I couldn't predict what this Edward would do, and it was terrifying.

And yet, there was something about this creature that I recognized. In the way that Edward put his arm around my shoulder whenever he thought someone was checking me out (they never were). In the way the muscles of his jaw flexed when he clenched his teeth in anger. In the passionate, booming classical pieces I heard him playing sometimes when I came over unexpected.

There was a connection between this monster and the Edward I knew, and whatever that was, it meant that loving one meant loving both. For better or worse. "I trust you," I said. _Do I mean it?_

That small encouragement was enough. He leaned toward me, and I awaited the comfort and connection to the familiar Edward that a gentle touch would bring.

It never came.

He bit the air right next to my cheek, reminding me of the pleasure his teeth could give me. _Yes, do it. Take my blood. _He licked a light line down my neck and the hairs there stood on end. _Wait, not yet. Not while I'm still afraid. _His teeth touched my skin, and there was an exquisite painful pressure, but no surging release. _Oh God, please. Do it. No, don't do it. Don't torture me like this._

His denim-covered cock shifted against me as he sat up. He didn't look me in the eye. He focused on my breasts, then reached out and grabbed one. His grip was too tight, and for a moment I was afraid it would burst, but my body so longed for his touch, _any_ touch, that I pushed myself against his hand.

He slapped my peaks. Hard. It stung. _Ow! _My core pulsed. _Again, please._

"Eager, aren't we, love?" His chill voice burned me. I blushed under his fingers, now deceptively gentle.

_He _slapped _me_—a sharp crack, then a sting in my cheek and a thudding ache in my jaw. My eyes filled with tears but the grasping in my core responded to his anger.

"Answer me." I nodded. _Yes. I want everything._

"Good girl," he said, and I felt an irrational rush of pride. Then he flung me around and I reeled, for a few seconds completely disoriented by the impossibly fast movement.

And then I felt where I was: in Edward's lap, leaning against the headboard. My skin was hyperaware of the thin cotton of Edward's T-shirt next to my back, the soft ridges of his jeans under my thighs, the hairs of his forearms prickly against my sides.

The calloused tips of his fingers brushed against the skin of my stomach, slipping under the elastic of my underwear. I was _so _ready. I spread my legs for him and pushed my core in the direction of his fingers, which grew slower and slower as they approached my clit. _Come on. Touch me._

And then, finally, his exploring hand made contact. So light that I could feel the texture of his fingerprints. So slow, gentle, electric, barely touching at all. So tantalizing . . .

So _unsatisfying_.

I thrust under his hand, embarrassed by my desperation, yet unable to stop myself.

"Hold still," he growled. I could have cried.

"Please, Edward." _I'll do anything. You know what I need_.

"Please what, my love?" _Don't make me say it. _His voice was so feral, so sensual that I wanted to crawl inside it, curl up between its icy veneer and the burning animal fury beneath.

And then I was lost in the intensity of his touch, the grasping hot pressure building inside me as he finally stroked me harder, faster. _More. Yes. _Growing pleasure, but also the growing pain of need like a blade slicing my core.

"I want you inside me, Edward. I need to be _yours_. Please." _Please, please, please._

"Silly Bella. You're already mine." His voice more animal than human, now. He pushed me face down onto the white sheets, crushing my wrists together painfully. I struggled to hold still, to stay where he wanted me.

He released the pressure on my wrists and slid into me in one fluid motion, weirdly cool, filling me close to the point of breaking.

And then he froze. _Oh, fuck. No blood. Of course_.

I opened my mouth to explain, but I was silenced by the sound he made, a furious roar with no trace of humanity in it. I couldn't stop him anymore.

It was hard. And fast. And _deep_. If he broke me now, he wouldn't care.

But I wasn't scared anymore. I was just _feeling_. I relished it all—the bright red starry pain of his scratches on my skin, the deep shuddering ache as he hammered into my deepest place, the prickling tear of his hands against my scalp . . .

"Who do you belong to?" What an obvious question.

"_Fuck_, Edward, I'm yours!" And—_finally, yes—_he ripped into my neck and I shattered with the sensation.

There was no Bella. Only pain, only pleasure, only him.

Only the surging, spasming, black ecstasy that pulled me under and set me alight. Only a name that washed over me again and again, like a heartbeat, like an earthquake, like a crushing wave.

_Edward. Edward. Edward._

_

* * *

_

I resurfaced slowly as the feeling ebbed and then stilled. I don't know how long I stayed motionless, my limbs pressing heavily into the bed. I was so completely drained of all will to act that I could not even have lifted my hand. So peaceful, so hazy, all my desires quieted.

Finally, Edward's arm on my back grew uncomfortably heavy and I mustered the energy to slide out from under him. As soon as I moved, the heaviness evaporated, and I felt as light and clean as the feather I brushed off my shoulder, ethereal as a dream.

I felt like I had walked through fire—my fear, my strength, my very selfhood burned to cinder by intensity and helplessness. Like I had risen from the ashes, stronger. Braver. Purified. Dissolved completely and returned to wholeness. A miracle.

I smiled at Edward, but received no response. He was dead to the world. _Typical male_. I pulled a feather out of his hair and wiped a smear of blood from his nose.

My blood coated his parted lips, dripping down his chin. Maybe I should have been disgusted by that. I wasn't. He was beautiful in sleep, the hard lines gone from his face, his expression so innocent, serious, and soft. In the blue light that passed through his bedroom curtains, he looked like a creature from another world. _My alien, my angel._

I would have been perfectly content to watch him sleep until he woke, but the drying blood on my chest began to itch and I realized how much I really, _really_ needed to take a shower.

I climbed gently over Edward, and he murmured my name before settling back to sleep. I took one last look before I slipped into the adjacent bathroom.

_Holy shit. I look like a fucking zombie. _I stared into the mirror in horror. It wasn't enough that I was basically covered in my own blood; my hair was matted with blood and feathers—_where are these feathers coming from?_—and there were thin red lines crisscrossing my back. One side of my face was slightly red and there were finger-shaped bruises starting to form on my wrists.

I turned the shower on as hot as I could stand and sighed as the water caressed my sore muscles. I picked up a bar of soap that smelled like Edward.

A sob echoed in the cubicle and I realized I was crying. Suddenly, from nowhere, I was overcome, tired, weak, and lonely, like a small child lost in a foreign place. The hot tears on my face, the sound of my unrestrained cries, heard and felt as though from a great distance. It did not occur to me to wonder why, or to try to stop.

Eventually, I emptied myself of sound and there were only slow, quiet tears. I sank down to the tile floor and stared numbly at the pink-tinged water swirling down the drain.

By the time the water grew cool, I had recovered. I was a little ashamed of myself, actually; it wasn't like me to break down like that. Especially for no discernible reason.

I found a comb in the bathroom drawer and battled the snarls of my hair. I stepped back into Edward's room wrapped in a large white towel that scraped roughly against the scratches on my back.

I started to get back into bed, but, when I bent down to pull back the covers, my head began to spin and I almost fell face-first onto a pillow covered in plaster dust. Instead, I fell backwards onto the thick carpet.

From my position on the floor, I noticed that an awful lot of this room was misted with my blood. The ceiling, for instance, and the windowsill. _What do they give blood donors? Juice and cookies?_

My stomach grumbled. _Juice and cookies it is_. I would have been more than satisfied with Oreos and Five Alive, but knowing the Cullens, my options would probably be homemade and fresh-squeezed. Or at least organic. I rolled my eyes a little; they were both so picky.

I grabbed my skirt and tank top, which were on the floor next to me, and stood shakily. Still dizzy, I tried to put them on, but it soon became apparent that that would be impossible. The skirt was torn neatly from top to bottom along the back seam, but the shirt was barely recognizable. I had visions of myself stuck in this bedroom forever, unwilling to risk running into Carlisle wearing Edward's clothes.

But my appetite beat out my fear of embarrassment, so I went toward Edward's dresser to search for something I could reasonably wear downstairs. I tripped over my bra on the way and fell gracelessly at my destination. _Bottom drawer first, I guess_.

So I opened it and took out—_a floral print dress?_ _What? _I rifled through the bottom drawer. It was definitely full of women's clothing. I couldn't really come up with a plausible explanation—_Edward in drag? Edward's secret second girlfriend?_—so I just grabbed something yellow and sleeveless and threw it over my head.

It fit me remarkably well—_that rules out option one—_but it looked like something an older woman would wear, making option two pretty unlikely.

My stomach made a loud, obnoxious noise. _Food now, far-fetched theorizing later_.

There weren't any cookies in the kitchen, but I found a piece of chocolate cheesecake in the fridge. _Close enough_. I was holding a pitcher of orange juice when Carlisle came in, carrying a large, beat-up trunk.

He dropped it when he saw me and stared with a look of pure loathing on his face.

"Uh, can I help you with that, Carlisle?" I asked, aware it was painfully obvious that I had been wearing different clothes when I came in. _He probably heard us anyway. Oh God, oh God. _I forced myself to continue moving normally and put the pitcher back in the fridge, a truly plastic smile frozen on my face.

He laughed a barking, forced, terrible laugh. "I think we can do just fine without your _help_." He advanced closer, leaning over the island toward me. "Now where the _fuck_ did you get that dress?"

Something was wrong; this was not just parental disapproval. I could smell alcohol on his icy breath. I backed away but he snatched my hand, his fingers colder than Edward's. "Where?" he said again.

"In, uh, Edward's dresser." I tried to pull my hand away but he wouldn't let go.

"Edward's dresser." He snickered to himself. "Poking in places where no one invited you, touching things that aren't meant to be touched. Who asked you to come barging in and tear everything open, _Isabella_? You think you can put it back together right? Well, you _can't_." He threw my hand against the counter and I started to back away slowly. "I know how this story ends, and you'd better believe it's a fucking tragedy. Blood and poison and betrayal."

I paused at the kitchen doorway. "Carlisle, I don't under—"

"What?" he snarled. "Haven't you seen enough of the Cullen Family Freak Show? Hate to break it to you, honey, but the chills and thrills end here. Time to get. The fuck. Out."

I hesitated.

"_While you still can_." He bared his teeth and snapped them in my direction. "For your own safety, darling."

I grabbed my purse as I ran out the door. I didn't stop to catch my breath until my truck and I were halfway home.

**Reviews = good karma!!!**


	6. Mr Darcy and Mr Hyde

**A/N: I don't own the work of Stephenie Meyer, Jane Austen, Frederic Chopin, or Fyodor Dostoyevsky. Sad but true. **

**Thanks for your reviews! They bring me joy and they help me decide what to do next. Extra-special thanks to Jessie from Twilighted because your review inspired my personal favorite part of this chapter. **

**Also a ton of thanks to Lola84 for her mad beta skillz. You are the best!**

*********

**Edward's POV:**

I was awake.

_Fuck._

I spent a couple of minutes wondering what would happen if I tried to go back to sleep a third time, but I'd already had so much more sleep than I needed as a vampire that I figured it wouldn't happen. Anyway, I really had to take a shower and drag myself downstairs. It was the only way to avoid Carlisle barging in and driving me to murder-suicide with a smug paternal speech. "I told you so and I only want what's best for you," et cetera.

_Fucking Carlisle, always has to be so goddamn right. _

I groaned as I got out of bed slowly, placing my feet on the floor one at a time like an old man. I wasn't sore or anything—_huzzah for mutant healing powers_—I just lacked the will to move. My muscles seemed to understand something the rest of me was still figuring out: it doesn't matter whether I'm in my bed, at my piano, or on the moon, drinking my own girlfriend's blood or sharing the Sunday paper with Carlisle—I'll still be what I am.

_And this is what I am_, I thought, staring myself down in the bathroom mirror. I traced the lines of encrusted blood that had dripped from my lips, down my chin, and onto my shirt. Experimentally, I narrowed my eyes and bared my teeth. _Animal._ I snapped at my reflection, turning toward the shower.

As soon as I turned the shower on I smelled Bella, the coppery traces of her blood and the salt hint of her tears. _She was crying here, while I was comfortably dreaming feet away_. I was such an asshole. I felt the guilt in my gut. _I should have been there for her. Even if I _was_ the last person she wanted to see._

The shower was melting the blood from my face, and unthinkingly I wiped some from my chin and pushed it into my mouth. My eyelids fluttered shut as I relished the depth of the taste, even old and diluted by the water. _The blood of my love_. There was a surge in my cock and before I knew it I was stroking it, collecting the rest of the blood with my other hand, backing away from the shower spray so I wouldn't lose any more precious drops.

I tasted her blood and smelled her tears and the fantasies came unasked. Bella blindfolded and tied to my bed frame, crying, begging for mercy, sobbing my name. Bella spreading her legs for me, moaning and shivering in ecstasy as I sink my teeth into her inner thigh. Bella kneeling before me, looking up at me shyly, reverently, as she takes my cock into her mouth. Such a good girl . . .

It didn't take long. I cried out and shuddered as I came, sucking the last of the rich metallic sweetness from under my fingernails.

I came back to my senses as soon as it was over, staring in disgust at the cold, white, viscous evidence left on my hand. _I am so fucking sick. _

The monster couldn't even give it a rest long enough to let me take a shower.

It was late in the evening by the time I made it downstairs, so I was pretty sure Carlisle must be waiting in the kitchen with a Declaration of his Righteous Concern all prepared for delivery the second I dared to forage for a snack.

Sure enough, there he was, sitting at the kitchen counter. _Just get it over with_. I gritted my teeth and skulked toward the fridge. "Hey, Carlisle."

I braced myself for the answer, but there was only a strained sobbing sound. I turned my head and collided head-on with the overpowering scent of scotch. "Carlisle?"

Carlisle looked up at me. His eyes were, of course, dry, since crying was impossible, but I could tell by their blank expression that he had been sitting like this for a while.

I had only seen him get this way once before, when Esme left.

"Edward. It went so wrong." His voice was scratchy and desperate. "I opened the closet and got out the trunk and I was going to help and it could have, maybe—it might have been okay, but then I came into the kitchen and she was wearing Esme's dress. And I knew it was all going to happen exactly the same. I couldn't let it—not to you. So I made her leave." He sobbed another dry, racking sob. "I made her see."

"_What?_" Was Bella okay? I gripped his shoulders. _Very_ tightly. "_What did you do?_"

"I didn't _hurt _her." He rolled his eyes at me. "What do you think I am, some kinda _monster_?" His chuckle had a hysterical tinge. He gestured randomly and his hand collided with his near-empty scotch bottle, sending it skidding across the counter.

As my panic for Bella's life subsided, my rage surfaced. _You_, the monster and I snarled internally at Carlisle. You_ are the reason I woke up alone. She was _mine_, and it was _my_ business, and now you've fucked it up. She had better be safe at home, and she'd better be happy to see me, or I will fucking tear you apart. _

"Where is she?" I fought hard to keep my voice level and slow. I didn't need a fight right now; I needed to get to Bella.

"Don't be so selfish." _Don't push your luck, old man._ "We've done enough damage. Just leave her alone so she can be happy."

**We've** _done enough damage? _

_Fuck. You._

The monster made a fist as I swung at my father, and my hand smashed into his face. He teetered and fell, and his stool clattered to the floor.

I stood there waiting for his cheek to heal and for the miserable fuckup to get up so I could hit him again. But he just lay there, writhing and dry sobbing on the kitchen tile, and the monster's anger turned to disgust at his pathetic display.

_I'll come back when you're sober enough to feel it._ I stepped over him on my way out the door.

Carlisle whispered something that might have been an apology, but I didn't really hear it. I was already gone.

***

I had to go slow enough to follow the scent of Bella's tires until I was sure that she had headed home. I finished the trip in less than a minute, running fast enough that if any humans could see me at all, they wouldn't believe their own senses.

When my hand touched the handle of the door to her building, I froze. What if, now that she had seen what I was capable of, now that Carlisle had done . . . whatever he had done, she didn't want to see me anymore? I didn't think I could bear to see her look at me with loathing, or, worse, genuine fear. Maybe I should just go.

A group of girls came up behind me, effectively pushing me inside. A couple of them smiled flirtatiously as they passed; God knows why, when they'd just caught me staring at a door like a total spaz. I managed a halfhearted wave in response before they disappeared, giggling, down the hallway.

Wanting to postpone the inevitable moment of rejection as long as possible, I took the stairs at human speed, imagining the possible outcomes. Bella invites me in, drags me to her bedroom, and begs me to ravish her. _Probably not._ Bella opens the door and slams it in my face. _More likely._

Then there I was, in front of her door. _Just do it, you wuss_. I knocked.

And . . . nothing.

I took a deep breath. Apart from the building's ambient smell of book mold, pizza boxes, and neglected laundry, I could detect the definite scent of Bella. She was in the living room. There was nobody else there; probably, her roommates were still home for the summer. Concentrating harder, I smelled Bella's tears and her fear, but both were at least an hour old—she seemed to be calm now. I didn't smell blood or physical pain. _So Carlisle was telling the truth. _Maybe she just hadn't heard my knock?

I knocked again, louder. Still nothing.

I tried the doorknob, and it was unlocked. I felt an irrational wave of protective anger—_anyone could have come in here—_and I pushed it away. Now was absolutely the worst possible time to lecture Bella on attention to her personal safety.

I opened the door a crack. "Bella?" I called hesitantly. She didn't answer, so I stepped into the room and closed the door behind me, slowly, as if trying not to startle a small animal. She was watching _Pride and Prejudice_, wearing pajamas, and eating cheerios out of the box.

"Hey." She looked up at me briefly and dully, avoiding eye contact, and turned her eyes back toward the TV.

"Bella, I—"

"Not yet. Please, it's just, everything's happened so fast—can we just . . . not talk yet?"

"Uh, sure. Of course." I passed in front of the TV and sat down awkwardly at the opposite end of the couch. Was it okay to touch her? My knee started to bounce in agitation and I forced it to stop.

It's not a bad movie, but I'd already seen it a couple of times with Bella, and I really was not in the mood for a cinematic adventure. So I watched Bella instead.

She was sitting folded up on the couch with the cereal box resting between her knees and her chest, completely unaware of how beautiful she was. I followed the waves of her long, dark hair with my eyes, trailing over the perfect white skin of her slender arms, unmarked except for her tiny white hairs and a few small freckles. I loved those arm freckles. I could have shut my eyes and told the exact location of every single one.

She raised a handful of cheerios to her soft, full mouth and I saw the mottled bruises on her wrists. I felt a sinking squeeze in my stomach. _I did that. Guilty. _I followed her fingers as they pushed past the small cut on her lip—_my fault_—and I let my gaze dwell on the delicate curve of her eyelashes, the slight twitch in the hollow of her cheek as she swallowed, the faint pulse visible to me on the side of her soft, white neck . . .

_No._ I concentrated on the bruises I had made and my yearning for her blood retreated. She sighed and I watched the rise and fall of her small chest. Ignoring the stale, processed aroma of the cheerios, I breathed in her smell, its soft sweetness, subtle hints of fresh cake and ice cream. The scents of my shower were all over her, and even tiny traces of our time together. It stirred primal feelings in me—_mine_—but it also felt . . . nice. Like I was still wrapped around her, like she carried me with her, even now. And then, of course, the beckoning notes of her blood. _Don't think about that._ Instead I thought about the crease she got in her forehead when was thinking hard, the fragile heat I felt when she placed her hand in mine, the feel of her fingerprints against my palm . . .

She shifted against the arm of the couch and realized that I was staring. She blushed shyly, uncomfortably, and looked away. Reluctantly, I turned my eyes back to the screen.

Eventually, the credits rolled. _Pride and Prejudice_ might be smarter and more complex, but at its heart it's the same as almost any other romance written since. Boy and girl meet. Maybe they like each other right away, maybe they don't. Complications arise. Complications are overcome. Boy and girl live happily ever after in a perfect union of love, tenderness, and light. Sunrises and sweeping views of the English countryside are optional, but one thing is pretty clear: at no point in the story does Mr. Darcy try to drink Elizabeth's blood.

"This isn't how it was supposed to go," Bella started quietly.

_Yeah. Usually romance and horror are separate genres._ "I'm sorry."

Her eyes were still glued to the blank screen. "It's stupid. I always imagined, you know, that, when we were finally . . . together, it would be passionate and romantic, but tender, and _safe_, because you were all those things. And then, after all this waiting and hoping and imagining, it finally happened and you weren't _you_. And it's—it's really just _stupid_ because everything was so intense, and it felt so good, and it was so beautiful in this totally unexpected way, but I spent so long thinking it would be—different." She blushed. _Concentrate, don't think about the blood. _"And I trust _you_, the one that I know, but now there's this other Edward that I don't know, and I can't tell how much of you is in him, and I just want so badly for _you_, this you, to be able to touch me—that way.

"But then, it's exciting, too." Her blush grew even deeper. "Your anger, your strength, the pain even, I liked . . . and, God, when you bit me, nothing else feels like that . . .

"So maybe it can work. But I don't know. I don't know what I want or what I can handle. I don't know if I need something more . . . normal. I don't know if I could even be satisfied with anything else, after what you've already shown me. But I know it's too much, too fast. And that's my fault. It was so stupid of me, making you . . . "

I stopped hearing her. _She doesn't know if she can stay with me. If she can love me. _Of course I knew that this wouldn't just magically be okay with her, but it was different actually sitting here while she said the words. Watching the anchor at the center of my life fade to a fragile "maybe." Would I even be able to let her go? I rubbed the itching at the corners of my eyes.

"Are you crying?" There was such concern in her deep eyes.

"No, I can't cry. It's impossible."

"Oh. Okay. But how are you—"

"Do you still love me?" I blurted out, then cringed, waiting for the answer. _Why did you ask that, you fucking pansy? And what if she says no?_

"Jesus, Edward, of course I do. _Always._" She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close, running her fingers through my hair. I almost purred.

And then I remembered the bruises on her wrists, and I knew what I needed to do. I took her hand from my hair. I grasped it gently by the palm, holding it in front of us. I traced the bruise with my finger, barely touching the skin. "I did that."

"It's okay. It doesn't even hurt anymore."

"Shh." Slowly, I brought her hand toward my mouth, and gently, reverently, circled her wrist with small bites. I clamped down hard on the monster in my mind, and, for the first time ever, I just . . . refused it. I refused to taste her blood, or even to think about it. I pushed every notion of sex out of my thoughts, and I focused only on healing and comfort. The bruising and the bite marks mended themselves as I pulled my teeth away.

"Mmmm, that feels nice," Bella cooed lazily. It was working.

I took her other wrist in my hands, stroking her palm as I bit delicately, piercing just beneath the skin. A trickle of blood slipped into my mouth accidentally, but I won the internal battle. I didn't suck on the bite, and I didn't sink my teeth into the vein in her wrist. I didn't even tighten my grip on her arm. I thought of sunrises and beautiful landscapes, I thought of the cookies Esme used to make, and I poured those thoughts into my venom. I massaged her fingers as her arm relaxed.

I turned away from her and inhaled deeply so I could hold my breath while I quickly and lightly nipped the cut in her bottom lip. I didn't think I could hold it together if I breathed in the blood from her lip and the smell of her hair.

The swelling on the side of her face was so slight, I knew Bella wouldn't be able to see it, so I just held her head and stroked the faint red place on her cheek. She smiled and leaned into my hand.

It got so much harder when I took of her shirt, very deliberately, giving her time to stop me if it wasn't okay. The raised scratches on her back just looked so _good_ to the monster, so clearly marking her as _mine_. I remembered the feel of her arching beneath my fingernails, the sight of her writhing beneath me. A small growl escaped me, and she tensed, almost imperceptibly.

_Not now_. I trembled with the effort as I shoved those thoughts to the back of my mind. Nothing could distract me now except Bella, so I closed my eyes and focused on her. I thought about our first date, how the candlelight had flickered on her face. The excitement and terror of not knowing how she felt, knowing how completely I needed to see her again. The first time I had taken her to our meadow, and we had talked for hours. I thought about how, impossibly, I loved her more now than I had then, how I would do anything to see her happy and whole.

I was trembling with the effort of the restraint, but I opened my eyes and rested my hands on her shoulders, fighting to concentrate on my love for her as I ran my teeth along the scratches.

She gasped my name. _Yeah, you like that—no. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Stay calm. Baseball. Esme. Chopin. _I played the Prelude in E Minor in my head, twice, and then it was finished, the scratches vanishing before my eyes. I knew her breasts were probably sore, too, but I just . . . couldn't do that. I kissed the small of her back and straightened.

She turned over and reached up to kiss me, so much gratitude and longing burning in her eyes. I turned away quickly, clenching my jaw against the onslaught of the monster. _Do it. Kiss her. _Taste_ her. She wants it._

"It's hard for you."

I nodded, swallowing the venom that had pooled in my mouth the second she touched the back of my neck. "It's getting late."

"Oh." She yawned. "Yeah, I guess it is."

She protested, but only weakly, when I picked her up and carried her to her bed. She felt solid but light in my shaking arms. _Just hold on for a few minutes more. _

By the time I had arranged the covers around her, she was nearly asleep. I kissed her lightly on the forehead, hoping she couldn't hear my ragged breathing, and turned toward the door.

"No, stay," she mumbled.

"I have to, love. I'll come back." I hoped she was too tired to notice the obvious strain in my voice.

"'S'okay, but only if you come back . . ."

I used the last of my control to shut the door softly, and I was outside in seconds, my hands visibly shaking, my whole body tense. I glared at the clear sky and breathed in the night air. _Good. _There were no people nearby.

_Squirrel._ When the syrupy scent of the blood reached me, I groaned audibly. It would be small and over-sweet, but right now I wasn't feeling particular.

I let go, relishing the breeze my speed created, the same temperature as my skin, and the rough, spongy feel of the bark that fell off in chunks as I climbed toward my prize. I snatched it from the branch before it even had time to squeal. I savored the prickle of the fur on my tongue, the bend and snap of the bones under my hungry grasp, and, of course, the sugary blood that filled my mouth twice before the life and the flavor were gone. It didn't feel like enough, but the shaking had stopped and my breathing was easy again. I looked at the small, mangled body in my hands and felt a pang of guilt; I never fed like this.

After I'd buried the squirrel and cleaned the dirt and blood from my hands and face, I came back to my Bella.

I wasn't remotely tired, so I crawled in beside her with a book. As I read in the dark, I listened to her quiet breathing and felt the echo of her heartbeat in the mattress. I was lost in Dostoevsky when she wrapped her small arm around me and draped herself across my chest. And, for the night, we would stay happily in bed together, just like any other couple in love.

She sighed in her sleep and whispered my name. It felt good.

*********

**Lurkers of the web, review! You have nothing to lose but your chains!**


	7. An Eye for an Eye

**A/N: Mountains of gratitude to Jo (aka ECullenitis) of the Perv Pack for recommending this story on her site Darkward's Dungeon (as well as its mother-site, the Perv Pack's Smut Shack). If you have not yet visited the Dungeon, you must, as it will direct you to much deliciously dark and dreamy Edward sexy-times . . . er, some amazing, well-written stories which you will love for much more than their smut content. Cullenitis not only writes marvelously witty reviews, but also made a beautiful banner for this story, for which I love her to death. **

**Also lots of thanks to Lola84, who did some hardcore beta-ing to this chapter. You have her to thank for increased lemons and, well, basically every part of this chapter that doesn't suck. **

**I haven't been able to reply to all of your reviews (yet!) but I have read them all (twice!) and I thank you for them. **

**I don't own Twilight. No, really. **

*********

_In my dream, it is too dark to see the edges of the bed, but I can feel everything. The cool satin sheet is lovely against my back, and my bare skin tingles under a slight breeze. I tug on my spread limbs, enjoying the tension of the ropes that bind me to the corners of the bed. I twist a little, savoring the roughness of the bindings on my wrists and ankles. _

_Edward must have done this. I smile and the need grows in my core as I anticipate his return. _

_And there he is, leaning against the bedpost in his white leather jacket. He smiles lazily as he drags his fingernail along the sole of my foot, drawing blood. There is no pain, only a slight tingle, as he collects the blood and sucks it from his finger. _

_He smiles lazily, licking the traces of blood from his lips. "I can make you feel anything I want, you know. Pain, pleasure. Comfort, terror. Ecstasy. Despair. As easily as this."_

_He is biting me on the ankle and we are in a meadow. The grass prickles against my skin. The sky is glowing, and there is a thatched cottage with flowers all around. I want desperately to go in, and I ask Edward to let me, but he just smiles and shakes his head as though I have asked for the moon. _

_He bites me on the thigh and it is dark everywhere. I am consumed with need. My core twitches and grasps at the air, and I writhe and beg for release. I am about to come . . . _

_Edward bites into my neck and I am falling through the dark, alone. I strike the surface of the ocean and there is nothing but the pressure of the water in my ears and a burning pain all over. The water fills my lungs. I call for Edward.  
_

_I am back on the bed and his head is buried between my legs. I know that he is drinking me but I cannot feel it. I am numb. _

_The man lapping blood from my slit lifts his head and looks me in the eye. But he is not Edward. He is Carlisle. He grins at me and his teeth are streaked with my blood. There are no ropes but I cannot move. _

_Carlisle is lowering his face toward me when a man with a sword comes up behind him and swings, slicing his head off cleanly. There is no blood, which I think is strange. _

_The man puts his sword down and I see him. Jacob. He grins at me, and when he touches my arm I can move again. He lifts me off the bed and kisses me gently on the forehead. I cling to him . . . _

***

As I opened my eyes, the confusion of my dream world faded and my bedroom bookshelf came into focus. I could feel the chill of Edward's arm brushing against my back as he changed position. I smiled, knowing that he must have been lying here reading for hours, waiting for me to wake up. A girl could get used to this.

Actually, I _was_ getting used to this. Edward had been here for four days.

Not that I was complaining. It had been wonderful, having Edward here when I woke up and with me by the end of every evening. We cooked dinner together, watched classic movies, and cuddled in bed for hours, literally talking until I fell asleep. It was perfect. Except . . .

Well, for one thing, we hadn't seriously talked about Edward's vampirism since the first day, and it was really getting on my nerves. He had opened up a little, explaining things like how he could read in the dark and why he only ate organic vegetables. But when I asked him what it was like to drink blood or why he got so uncomfortable when I blushed, he changed the subject without even trying to answer.

We hadn't talked about sex at all. I knew that Edward was avoiding it, but so was I. The truth was, the more time I spent thinking about it, the more ambivalent I felt. Part of me would have gratefully submitted to anything to be that close to him again. But another part of me was terrified—not of Edward, of course, but of the way his small cruelties had thrilled me so much more than I had expected. What kind of girl not only _lets_ her boyfriend hit her, but actually talks him into it and then gets off on it? I thought I could accept Edward for who he was, but was this a side of _myself_ that I wasn't willing to see? I didn't know, so we played Trivial Pursuit and went for walks in the forest, and I tried to pretend I didn't want to jump him every time he smiled at me or ran a hand through his hair.

In some ways, it was even worse than it was before I kissed him, since now I knew enough to notice the way he tensed when I looked into his eyes or held him too tightly. He could smell it when I thought about kissing him, and his clenched jaw and stiffened shoulders always told me no before I even tried. It was humiliating, watching him sit there like a rock and knowing he could tell exactly how much I wanted him.

And then there was Carlisle. Edward was staying with me because he insisted that he was still too angry to talk to his father. I hated that I had come between them. I'd tried to tell Edward that I had overreacted and it really wasn't that big of a deal, but Edward knew when I was lying. _He can probably smell that, too, somehow. _

So Edward still refused to go home and, whether or not I agreed with his reasons for staying, I had him all to myself. I was trying to ignore all the crap and make the most of these days together. I didn't know how long they could last.

There was a small shuffle as Edward turned a page. I rolled over to see what he was reading. "Good morning."

"Good morning, love." His tone was apparently cheerful, but he kept his eyes firmly fixed on the pages of _The Stranger_. I saw the telltale tightening at the corner of his jaw.

"Is everything okay?" Obviously, it wasn't.

"Yeah. Of course." He swallowed and turned another page. "Who's Jacob?"

Had Edward been going through my stuff? "Where did you—"

"You're quite talkative in your sleep."

"Oh." _Wait. Shit. What else did he hear?_ I tried to replay my dreams in my head, and I remembered something about Edward tying me to a bed, and something else about begging for orgasms . . . I rubbed my legs together experimentally. There was definitely some wetness there. Which Edward could no doubt smell. _Just fabulous. Nothing like a little mortification to start off a Wednesday morning._

"Bella, don't make me ask again," he said with an underlying harshness that surprised me after so many days of kindness and courtesy. Was he jealous?

"We were good friends in Forks. We've known each other since we were little."

"And?" he asked with exaggerated patience.

"We, um, dated in high school for a while. But it turned out—"

"Was he the one?" I knew what he meant.

"Yes." My face grew hot as I remembered how Edward had learned that I wasn't a virgin, and what had happened afterward.

"Bella." He growled my name like a warning. "You need to stop blushing. It's making things . . . difficult."

I turned my face away, but the anger and desire in his voice went straight to my core.

He knew it, of course, and it was getting to him. Even without touching him, I could feel the tension radiating from his body.

And I could hear it in his voice when he told me, with deliberate calm, "You have two choices. You can leave the room within the next ten seconds and leave me the fuck alone until I've cooled off. Or, you can stay here and I'll make sure that's the last time you even _dream_ about calling a name that isn't mine."

I glanced at him sideways, careful not to let him see my face. He was as still as a jungle cat, every muscle taut. He was still holding the book in front of him, but I don't think he'd noticed that it had crumpled in his hand.

My mind was screaming to get out of there before he snapped, but my body had other ideas. It wanted him to give in to that jealousy, and it wanted me to be here to feel it. I thought about those powerful fingers bruising my hips as he fucked me without mercy, and I almost decided to stay.

Reason, however, triumphed over my racing pulse and my active imagination. No, I shouldn't let this happen, not when we couldn't talk about it first. I sat up to leave.

His grip on my forearm was tight and stiff as stone, and his tone was similarly hostile. "Time's up, love."

I felt anxious, but also strangely relieved that he had made the decision for me. I _had_ to stay, right?

"Strip. Stay on the bed," he commanded simply and released my arm. As I slipped out of my tank top and pajama pants, he got out of bed and rantedas he rustled through my drawers.

"I think you do it on purpose. The blushing, the pouting, the cleavage-baring shirts that show off your neck like it's a goddamn steak dinner. You're _trying_ to make me crazy. I think it's fucking _fun_ for you to wiggle your ass against my cock at night and watch me nearly crack." He slammed the last dresser drawer closed, and turned to the pile of clothes nestled against the closet. "Begging me with your eyes to bite you, making yourself so wet I can smell your cunt from the next room. You know I'm suffering, and you love it. Don't you?"

I hadn't been doing anything of the sort. Had I? "I . . . um . . ."

"Shut up." He found his jeans from yesterday and pulled his belt out of the loops. "I don't want a fucking apology, I want justice. An eye for an eye, the simplest kind. You torture me, I torture you." He took the belt in both hands and snapped it with a startling _thwack_.

_Oh God. No, he couldn't be._ My stomach clenched in fear. Could I handle this?

He gestured impatiently for me to lie on my stomach, and I obeyed, my whole body rigid with nervous tension.

I quivered when I heard movement behind me, but his first touch was featherlight, his fingers tickling against the folds around my clit. He gradually increased the pressure until I couldn't stop myself from letting out a little moan and rubbing myself against him.

He chuckled and drew his hand away, bending so that I could feel his breath next to my ear. "You're so greedy, love. Your body remembers me, and it knows I'm the one you need. Nobody else can give you what I can, can they?" He pressed his very wet fingers against my lips. "Taste it. Taste how much you want this."

I grimaced but accepted his fingers. It wasn't bad, actually, just fruity and tart, and I liked the roughness of his fingerprints against my tongue.

He withdrew his hand and moved away again. I felt the caress of cool, sleek leather on my back as he traced gently from the tips of my shoulder blades to the tops of my thighs. He rapped my back with the belt a few times, and I heard the taps against my flesh, but it hardly hurt at all. I relaxed a little.

There was a snapping sound and a sharp sting on my back, and I cringed and cried out in shock. I could feel the imprint of the belt on my skin as the bright white surface pain began to fade to a deeper, smoldering tingle. Before I could take a breath, there was another snap to my shoulder blade, and another stinging lash on my ass. With each strike, I flinched farther away, so Edward held me in place with a heavy forearm across my shoulders as he pelted me faster and harder.

All my skin was burning, and I cringed under each biting blow, certain it would be too much, but he gave me the most I could bear, and no more. I sobbed beneath him, and he answered my cries with greater force.

Eventually, he slowed down, his strikes just as firm but at longer intervals. "God, you fucking _love_ this," he murmured, almost to himself, amazement evident in his voice. And as soon as he said it, I realized that he was right: with tears streaming down my face and my back angrily aflame, I was marvelously—horrifyingly—aroused. He tossed his belt aside and I melted under the caress of his soft, cooling hands against my prickling skin. _Oh, please. Please fuck me. I'll do anything. _

I must have been begging him out loud because he flipped me over brusquely to answer my pleas. He avoided my eyes as he slid into me abruptly, his jaw clenched tight.

He thrust into me so quick and deep it would have hurt if I hadn't wanted it so badly. He lifted me with one arm and held me against his chest as he pounded me urgently. Every thrust he gave me made me want more, harder, faster. I felt my core clutching at him as my need swelled until I felt nothing but all-consuming, vast, grasping desire.

I was _so_ close. I could hear him panting in time with his thrusts, his face pressed next to my neck, and I tilted my head to the side in invitation._ Bite me, please . . . _

I was almost there when he stopped everything and let go of me. My body crashed to the bed. I thrashed desperately against him, rabid with need, but he remained perfectly still.

When I gave up, his russet eyes met my gaze. His smile was forced and full of teeth. "Is there something you want, pet?" His voice was gentle, but only on the surface.

I whimpered, struggling to find my voice. "Oh God, I need to come. Please let me come. I'll do anything. _Please_."

He laughed blackly at my agony.

"I have a better idea. Why don't you tell me about your dream?" He was sneering now, the rage boiling up and breaking the surface of his voice. "Why don't you tell me what Jacob did to you, _slut_? Tell me what he could possibly give you that you can't get from me."

_Slut. _

The word echoed in my chest.

_Is that what you think of me? I've shared _everything _with you, my love, my home, and my blood. Knowing what you are, how dangerous you are, I'm trusting you with my _life_, and you don't even trust me to be faithful._ _You seriously think I spend the night fantasizing about some other guy? You think I'm just interested in getting off, that when I bare my soul to you like this it's just sex to me? Is that all it is to you? _

My whole body felt foreign, all traces of desire vanished. For once, Edward wasn't holding me down, so I slid out from under him, stopping only when my back was flat against the headboard. I pulled my knees in front of me and crossed my arms over my chest.

Blankly, I told him what he wanted to hear.

"In my dream, you and Carlisle were the same, and you were hurting me. Jacob saved me from both of you."

I glared directly into his eyes. "_He_ was gentle."

His menacing grin faltered and, for a moment, he looked incredibly young, his expression soft and desolate. I felt instant regret, but also a cold satisfaction that now he hurt as much as I did.

He didn't say a word, and I folded my arms tighter against the heavy silence.

Finally he spoke, fidgeting with a loose thread on the edge of the belt. "Right. I think . . . maybe I should go out for a while."

I just nodded.

He gathered up his clothes and left, and I listened to his slow, noisy movements in the living room as he got dressed and scuffed out the door. They almost sounded human.

*********

**Review me, baby! You know you want to. **


	8. Like Father, Like Son

**A/N: Thanks for your reviews! If I haven't answered yet, it's because I've been away for a few days. Thanks in particular to those who told me they have nominated this story for the Indie TwiFic Awards! You guys are awesome. Thanks also to my beta Lola84.**

**I own nothing.**

**Edward's POV:**

_The harder I try, the more I fuck everything up. I should have known that after days of swallowing every vicious impulse, repressing every savage thought, it would all explode in the end. God, I fucking _beat _her, and I convinced myself she was _enjoying _it. Who does something like that? Somebody sick. Somebody disgusting. A deranged, perverted, fucked-up worthless freak . . ._

I didn't know where I was going. I was plodding along at human pace away from Bella's dorm. I passed some students I sort of knew from last year's English class and some of them waved. I snarled openly in response, baring my teeth like an animal. _Leave me the fuck alone._

A couple of jaws actually dropped, but the rest of them pretended not to see me. _That's right. Oh my God, it's a monster! Run away! Go tell all your friends about the freak from Lit 112. I don't care._

What I cared about was this fuckhole Jacob who'd had his hands all over _my_ girl and was still the knight in shining armor in her dreams. He was probably some whiny shrimp that Bella had taken pity on, but no matter what I told myself, in my head he was bigger, stronger, and better looking than me. I kept picturing the way she said his name, again and again. It made me nauseous.

_He was gentle._ I couldn't stop imagining her in his arms. Where she felt safe, and comfortable, and loved—all the things I couldn't make her feel. The more _I_ loved her, the more I hurt her.

I started to run, not that it made any difference. There was nowhere to go.

It was a good thing she hadn't told me the dickwad's last name, because right now there was nothing I wanted more than to find him and make him scream. To pour all my loathing into searing venom and drink him almost to the point of death. To do it over and over until he begged me to tear him to pieces and let him die.

It would be just like in Bella's dream, only the ending would be different. Jacob, the sweet and docile hero, reduced to nothing. Me, the victorious villain, feasting on blood and pain. No remorse.

Yeah, right. I thought back to the time I actually _had_ killed a man and the waves of guilt that had oppressed me like a sickness for a long time afterward. _Too bad. A grisly murder would definitely help release some of this tension._

I looked up and was surprised to find that I was on my own street corner. Why the fuck would I want to go home? Carlisle would probably be there, and he was the last person I wanted to see.

This whole impossible mess was his fault. If he hadn't traumatized Bella and made me so furious I had to leave home, I wouldn't have had to endure four sexless days of her near-constant proximity, and I wouldn't have lost control.

_In the dream, he and I were the same person. Of course, why wouldn't all vampires be the same? ____Carlisle scared the shit out of her, and now I've treated her even worse. She'll never trust me now._

Things would be fine if he hadn't stuck his arrogant nose into my business and ruined everything.

I could smell him inside the house. Old Spice and soap. _What kind of loser is at home in the middle of the day on a Wednesday afternoon?_

I took care to be quiet on the front porch. I wanted to see him before he knew I was here.

I came into his study to find him reading in a large leather chair by the French doors. When I cleared my throat, he looked up and beamed at me like I was some long lost hero come to rescue him. He stood and opened his arms.

I could not _believe_ he had the nerve to stand there expecting me to act like everything was just fine. When I pushed him, it was a reflex, really. I would have done anything to wipe that disgustingly friendly smile off his face.

I shoved him hard with both hands, and he smashed through the French doors so fast that even he didn't have time to react. He went down with his eyes wide and the smile erased, his arms still outstretched. There was a soft tinkle and a vibration in the carpet as the remaining shards of glass fell out of the doors.

I savored the acid smell of vampire blood in the air. That felt _good_. The monster and I wanted to do it again. "Get up."

"Look, Edward, I understand you're upset, and I know I should have handled things differently, but if we could just sit down like civilized human beings—"

_Upset? There's a fucking understatement. And I am so very far from a "civilized human being." _I nudged his extended leg. "Get up."

"Fine." He gestured for me to wait, then peeled himself off the ground. He swore quietly as he pulled a very large shard of glass out of his palm. I thought he would toss it aside, but instead he held it in front of him, his muscles coiled in a slight crouch. He looked ready to kill. When he made eye contact, his expression smoldered with fierce determination. "But you _will_ listen to me."

I lunged at him, but he was already across the room with the heavy oak desk between us. "Look, Edward, I know you think Bella understands you, but, trust me, nobody can understand what it's like for us unless they've _seen_ it. I gave her a glimpse of how cruel, how monstrous we can be so that you wouldn't do it by accident. So you wouldn't have to watch her learning it slowly, hating you a little more all the time until one day she was finally gone."

I chased him around the edge of the desk but he sliced at my arm. It threw me off and he pushed over a bookshelf. I ducked to avoid the avalanche of books and boards as he fled to the other side. We were separated again.

"It wasn't up to you, Carlisle. She was _mine_! And if you hadn't fucked it all up—"

"Edward, I wanted it to work out for you. I was hoping against all reason. I even got out the trunk for you, just in case it could help. But the dress was a sign. You know I want you to be happy. But you also have to know that you can't have a nice girl like that. She deserves better. Someone who actually has a chance in hell of making _her_ happy."

_Someone like Jacob_. Cold nausea gripped me and my heart raced. I leaped clean over the desk and rolled into the shattered glass, taking Carlisle down with me. The shards crunched beneath his back as I snarled into his face, scratching at his arms as he struggled to grab my hands. "I _had_ her. _You_. _Ruined. Everything._"

I grabbed a handful of broken glass and ground it into his cheek, the blood from my hand mingling with his as the chunks tore his skin.

He caught my wrists and flipped us over, my body dotted with sharp pains where I landed on the glass. "I can't ruin what you didn't have. I tried to _save_ you from the hell I went through with Esme, you ungrateful little prick!" He jabbed my thigh with his knee.

"I. Am. Not. You," I grunted as I fought against his weight.

"You're not? I think you're fucking close enough. I heard you two up there." He shifted his knees, driving my ass into the splinters. He sneered at me condescendingly, his voice a taunting imitation of innocence. "Did you slap her _politely_? Were you gentle when you _punched a hole in the fucking wall_? Did you read her a sonnet before you asked nicely if you could suck the blood out of her neck?"

I snatched his wrist between my teeth and ripped into his flesh so he could feel my wrath. He screeched like a wildcat and I rolled us over, pinning him to the ground. I spat out the vinegar taste of his vampire blood.

I felt blank, untouchable in the purity of my anger. It wasn't even difficult to hold him down anymore.

My voice was level. "It doesn't matter. I love her. We love each other, and that's enough. We'll figure the rest out if you can mind your own damn business."

Carlisle chuckled sadly. "God, sometimes I forget how young you are. It wasn't enough for Esme and I . . . what makes you think it could possibly be different for you?"

"The difference," I said coldly, "is that Esme didn't love you."

He snarled rabidly and twisted out of my grip, driving my head into the desk behind us. There was a horrible grinding sound. I saw red and blood roared in my ears.

I couldn't hear until the pain had faded to a dull throb. "—perfect until you came along. Wouldn't have lost my job, wouldn't have ever heard of a vampire. I'm a fucking _murderer_ because of you." His fingernails were driving into my arms. "That woman would have _died_ for me when I was a man. And not even she could love me now. Do you—"

He grabbed my throat and backhanded me across the face. I tasted my own vile blood.

"—understand—" He slapped me in the other direction. I felt the grain of the wood against my cheek.

"—what that means?" He shook me by both shoulders and my head knocked loosely against the desk.

I licked my split lip and swallowed. My voice was scratchy but I forced the words out in a whisper. "You're the one who wanted to play intrepid scientist and go hunting vampires. You lied to her, and you killed a man, and you never even tried to give her what she needed. If it wasn't for you, she'd still be here. And now you're doing it to me again. How can you hate me this much, that you have to drive everyone away from us? Yeah, I get it, I'm unlovable. So just fuck off and leave me alone."

He released me in a sudden move and got up shakily, turning to look out through the broken doors. I slid down the desk until my cheek touched the carpet. He didn't answer for a while.

God, everything hurt. My throat burned and my head was still pounding. Tiny cuts stung all over my body, and pain shot through my hand when I flexed my fingers. My bones ached.

Finally, his soft voice intruded on the silence. "You're my _son_, I never meant to imply that _I_ didn't . . . Christ. It's not you who I hate."

When I didn't answer, he continued. "It's this _thing_ that's in me, this monster that tore down my life. And I can't even tell sometimes where it ends and where I begin, you know? And then, when I see it in you, I just . . ."

"I think I know exactly what you mean." My voice had cleared, and the pain in my head was almost gone. I was still dead tired, though. I pulled myself up, using the desk for support, and went to stand next to my father.

There was a robin flitting around the oak tree in the backyard. I felt so empty, so purely calm that I didn't even feel an urge to catch it. We just watched it for a while, enjoying the delicacy of its movements, its shadow skimming across the sunlit leaves.

When the robin flew away, Carlisle cleared his throat. "I guess we'd better clean this up, then."

He turned toward me. I knew I was way worse off—Carlisle must have fed a lot while I was gone—but I still felt a little sick when I saw the raw, pulpy mess I'd made of his cheek.

"It'll be gone in an hour or two," he reminded me. I guess it was obvious what I was looking at.

Too bad Carlisle's study didn't have supernatural healing powers. With the fallen bookshelf and the blood and glass in the carpet, it looked like an earthquake had hit.

We worked mostly in silence, Carlisle reassembling his bookshelf while I did the best I could to vacuum up the glass shards and tape plastic over the gaping hole in the wall. I had been so tense for so long, it was nice not to talk.

Eventually, I felt like it was good enough for now. We'd fix the rest later. "I'm starving. Blood or food?" I asked. I knew blood would help us heal faster, but I really just wanted to feel human right now.

"There are steaks in the fridge," he suggested tentatively, and I nodded.

When we went into the kitchen, I noticed a beat-up old trunk shoved into the corner of the room. It looked completely absurd next to the stainless steel dishwasher. "What the hell is that?"

I know it's impossible, but I could have sworn he was blushing. "That's um . . . yeah. It's for you, I guess. I know it's, well, it's strange for me to give you, but I thought it would be worth it if anything might help . . ."

I went over and cracked the lid open. I smelled leather, metal, and book mold. It was a weird combination, and I couldn't guess why Carlisle was acting so strange about it, so I lifted the lid all the way.

It took me a minute to realize what it was. There were coils of rope and chain, a riding crop and a couple other leather implements I didn't recognize. It looked like there were more things underneath, but before I could look I saw the neat row of books arranged at the end of the trunk with their spines in a row. _Screw the Roses, Send Me the Thorns. SM101. The Topping Book. The Bottoming Book. The Loving Dominant._

"Don't look so horrified. It's not like they've really been used."

_Not _really _been used? Jesus fuck, there's an image I did not need in my head._

"Edward, I know you don't want to hear this from me, but it needs to be said and there's nobody else to tell you. I know what it's like, and I promise you, if you don't make rules you can actually stick to, _you're going to hurt her_. Now, maybe there's another way to do it, but I sure as hell couldn't think of a better one."

"This is pretty fucking weird, Carlisle," I answered, but the back of my mind was already alive with ideas . . . and with hope. "You really think it could work?"

"I honestly don't know. But it's worth a try. And I know it's awkward, but if you have any questions, you can talk to me."

I nodded. After dinner, I'd call Bella and tell her I couldn't come back until tomorrow. Tonight, I had some reading to do.

**The Indie TwiFic Awards are currently accepting nominations at theindietwificawards (dot) com. Nominations are cumulative, so go nominate to help the lesser-known stories you love make it to the next round!**


	9. Confrontations and Evasions

**A/N: Sorry I've been AWOL for a little – traveling and whatnot. Thanks so much for your fabulous, encouraging, insightful reviews, which I plan to reply to as soon as I've caught up with my writing. I got kind of stuck on this chapter, and reading the last chapter's reviews really helped me out. **

**Thanks also to my awesome beta Lola84.  
**

**I don't own a thing.**

*********

I wasn't sure if I had imagined the soft knock on my bedroom door until I heard Edward's tentative voice. "Bella? Can I come in?"

"Yeah." I was surprised at how casual my voice sounded as I put my book aside and climbed out from under the covers. Really, my chest was tight with anxiety because I honestly didn't know how this conversation was going to go, and there were so many ways it could go wrong. I felt like, after the way he had treated me, I wouldn't know until I walked in whether or not I could ever trust him again. If I couldn't, what would I do without him? What if I found I could, and I loved him more than ever, but he didn't even try to convince me I was more than just some slut to him? I needed to be convinced so badly. And what if it was clear that I loved him and he loved me, but we were still in exactly the same situation? It was obvious that things couldn't go on the way they had been.

He shut the door behind him slowly and quietly, as if he were afraid of startling me. He was wearing the same jeans he had on the first time he bit me, and I couldn't help noticing that his gray t-shirt was just snug enough against his subtly muscled chest. He ran his fingers through his hair—my favorite of his nervous habits—and it fell back against his forehead in a messy pile. He looked as confused as I felt, his golden eyes searching my face for some indication of what he should do now that he was here. For once, we were on equal footing.

But when he breathed in deeply and his expression constricted for a moment, I knew he could smell the tears that had soaked into my pillowcase after he left. It was so unfair that I couldn't stop him from reading my body when he could conceal his feelings from me so easily. "If you didn't want me to cry, you shouldn't have fucking run away," I snapped.

He looked a little startled. "You're right. I know. I'm sorry. I just—I couldn't deal with it all. I still can't believe I _hit_ you. I'm so sorry, Bella."

"Is that what you think this is about?" Could he really not know that what he'd said would hurt me? Did that make it better, or worse?

"Well, isn't it?"

"It's _why_ you hit me. You thought I was fantasizing about Jacob, remember? You thought I was so cheap that I would . . ." My voice shook, but I refused to let myself cry. "You called me a _slut_, Edward, and you meant it."

He came toward me and took my hand. "Oh, no. No, that's not what I—I don't even remember saying that. That wasn't me, it was the monster. It's jealous, and—"

I snatched my hand away. "Fuck your monster! That's not good enough. You can't just do and say whatever the fuck you want whenever you want to, and then say 'oh, I'm just a vampire' and make it magically disappear. _You_ said it, and _you_ thought it, and you're responsible for your own goddamn actions."

"You think it's just that easy? Like I can just turn it off if I don't like what it's making me do? You have no idea what it's like!" He was pacing around at the foot of the bed.

"Then _tell_ me what it's like! How am I supposed to trust you when you keep everything a secret?"

"Fine. You really want to know, I'll tell you. It's like I'm fucking insane, Bella!

"No, that's not it." He sat down at the foot of the bed, as far from me as possible. "It's like . . . It's like having two personalities. No, it's more like someone else is trying to take control of my brain. And this thing that's trying to take over, all it wants is sex and blood, and it's obsessed with its own power to devour and destroy. It's always there, waiting at the back of my mind, scratching away at my soul until it breaks through. Then it _becomes_ me, and,sometimes for a moment, sometimes for hours, I need what it needs and feel what it feels. It feeds on my desires, and all physical pleasures. When I eat something delicious, I thirst for blood. When I drink blood, I crave more blood. When I see a beautiful painting or sit in a comfortable chair, I long to take it for myself or to tear it apart. And when I think of you . . . well, you've seen what happens then. It won't even let me want you the way that I should. Ever. It's so hard to even understand what I feel for you when, the second I think of you, there it is, tainting every impulse."

"But you can stop it. I've seen you. The night you healed me—"

"I killed a squirrel," he interjected abruptly, his gaze directed at the comforter.

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"The more I repress, the harder it gets. After I healed you, I went outside and drank a squirrel. I couldn't stop myself. There was blood everywhere. It was . . . gross, in retrospect."

"No kidding." I tried not to picture it. _You asked him to be more open. Well, this is what you get. _

"I guess what I'm trying to tell you is I can't make it go away. It's fucked up, and I hate it, but it's part of who I am. So I don't know what to do, because I can't keep apologizing for every fucking thing—"

"You're not listening to me. It's not 'every fucking thing'. It's this _one_ thing. I think I've been pretty patient, and I've trusted you when I probably shouldn't have, and I'm putting up with all this crap because I _love _you, and then I have some stupid dream and you come to the worst possible conclusion. Like I'm so worthless, like nothing I've done means anything to you."

He leaned forward, taking my hands and looking earnestly into my eyes. "God, Bella, that's not it. If I doubted you at all, it's only because I know what I've put you through, how difficult I am to be with. And you're so amazing, and so beautiful, you could have whoever you wanted. You could have someone normal and uncomplicated, who could treat you the way you deserve. So of course I get jealous."

I grabbed his hands tighter. "But I don't _want_ someone normal, or well-mannered, or sane! I want _you_, so could you please just accept it and stop being an asshole!"

"Um . . . yeah. Okay. I can try." He smiled wryly and leaned forward to kiss me. The touch of his lips was tender and warm enough that I could delude myself for a moment that his thoughts were the same. But when he growled softly into my mouth, it reminded me that the gentleness was a lie, and I pulled away.

Besides, there was something I needed to know. "Edward, if you hadn't bitten me by accident, would you _ever_ have told me what you are?"

"I was waiting for the right moment. Turns out there's never a right moment to slip 'hey, guess what, I've got creepy supernatural powers' into casual conversation. And I . . . I didn't want you to leave yet. It was selfish. I'm sorry."

"Yeah." I saw the unspoken question clearly in his face: did I wish that he had told me before I fell in love with him, so I could have run away and spared myself all of this shit? I didn't know the answer to that, so we were quiet for a while.

He cleared his throat. "So you're not . . . upset . . . about the belt?"

"The belt?" It hadn't crossed my mind since Edward had left. No, that wasn't true. I had avoided thinking about it. Yeah, I could accept that the undercurrent of aggression in Edward's personality had been part of what drew me to him in the first place. And I had thought I accepted my body's response to that aggression.

But now I realized that I was only learning the depth of the violence and dominance within him and, even more frightening, the depth of my craving to be possessed and tormented by him. It felt like standing on the edge of a sheer drop into a beckoning abyss. I so desperately wanted to say _no, you're not imagining my reactions. Yes, I wanted it, you give me what I need. _I wanted to be honest with him, especially when he was trying so hard to he honest with me, but saying those words out loud would mean giving myself up to that need. It would mean stepping off the edge into our mutual darkness, not knowing how far I would fall, not knowing if I would still be myself when—if ever—I finally reached the bottom of my desire.

I didn't need it badly enough to accept the risks. Not yet, anyway. But I couldn't let it go entirely. If I could keep some control, everything would be okay. Safe. Right?

"I guess I'm . . . confused." _That's right, Swan, don't admit to anything. _ "I'm not mad at you. But I don't think it was fair that I either had to leave the room altogether or accept whatever you wanted to do to me. Is there . . . maybe some kind of middle ground?"

It looked like he was trying not to smile, which I didn't understand. "It's like you read my mind. I think I've found something that might work for us."

*********

**The first round of voting for the Indie Twific Awards is happening from now until midnight on Monday, July 13****th****. I'm nominated in the AU and Undiscovered Erotica categories (Yay! Thanks guys!). If you're so inclined, you can drop by at theindietwificawards (dot) com and show your obscure favorites some love. **

**I am grateful for all reviews. Especially if you have any thoughts about Edward and Bella's future lemony adventures (which are coming right up)! **


	10. If You Give an Inch

**A/N: This chapter gets an extra-special disclaimer.**

**This is not going to be a story about D/s relationships in general. This is a story about Edward and Bella's relationship, and they aren't interested in fitting the requirements of "real" D/s as they are in finding a way to make their unique sexual relationship work. So please don't take this story as an indication of what I think all real-life BDSM is like (especially since I suspect that, in real life, it's a little different for everyone who does it).**

**Also extra-special thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter and/or voted for this story for the Indies. And thanks to dihenydd and lavishone, whose reviews directly or indirectly inspired this chapter.**

**And even more extra-special thanks to my beta Lola84, who really outdid herself with this chapter.**

**Also, I don't own anything.**

After he explained the awkward conversation with his father, it took him a little while to clear my head of the image of Edward in leather pants dragging me around campus on a leash. Not that the thought was _entirely_ displeasing as a fantasy—especially the part about the leather pants—but I knew I didn't want to live my life that way. Eventually, he convinced me that there was a whole range of options, that leather and public indecency were permitted but not required, and that we could pick and choose the parts that would work for our . . . unique situation.

When Edward explained the concept of safe words, I began to understand why he was so excited. This was exactly what we had been missing: something I could do to stop Edward if I felt like he was going too far. Edward thought it would be more effective if we used something that reminded him of his gentler, human side, so my safe word became "Esme."

And now we had moved on to limits, and I was going through a truly massive alphabetical checklist of every sexual act and object known to the human race in order to decide exactly what Edward was and wasn't allowed to do to me. I didn't usually think of myself as a total innocent, but in the past hour I had learned a truly staggering amount about the extent of human perversity. Edward, the lucky bastard, was sprawled on the bed next to me, reading a book while I completed the alternately arousing, embarrassing, and terrifying task of researching the terms I didn't know, marking my limits, and rating everything from zero to four according to my degree of interest. I was already completely overwhelmed, and there was still a third of the alphabet to go.

_Rough Sex_. _Hmm, yes. _I imagined the cold feel of a wall against my bare skin as Edward slammed into me, his guttural growling punctuated by the impact of our bodies. I could almost feel the texture of the paint as my shoulder blades scraped against it, the delicious pain as Edward bruised my neck with his lips and teeth . . .

Involuntarily, I rubbed my thighs together and noticed the growing wetness there. Edward shifted uncomfortably, his eyes carefully focused on the pages in front of him. _Great. _He had _definitely_ noticed that his completely oversexed girlfriend was getting turned on just_reading_ a list of lewd behaviors. At least he knew me well enough not to point it out.

I was going to write a "four" but I figured I had humiliated myself sufficiently for the moment. A "two" would be fine.

_Scat._ No need for research there. I wrote "limit" in large capital letters and moved on.

_Sensory Deprivation._ _What would that be like?_ I thought of myself suspended in a sightless, soundless void, Edward's hands my only connection to the outside world. I melted under a firm, proprietary caress that explored from my neck to my knees, and then, without warning, a startling slap to my ass. I wanted another, and held my breath in anticipation of the next, not knowing when or where . . .

_Wait, what the hell is wrong with me? Is Edward hitting me even in my _fantasies_, now? And what could I possibly be thinking? If I didn't know what he was going to do next, I wouldn't be able to _stop _him from doing something dangerous!_

Right. It wouldn't be safe. I wouldn't have enough control. Definitely not a good idea. With some regret, I wrote "limit" and turned the page.

_Sexual Service._ Okay, I had an idea of what that might mean, but I needed the Internet to provide a little clarification. I pulled my laptop closer, typed in a search, and clicked the first link.

That was a mistake. This site was not intended merely for informational purposes, and before I knew what was happening, an extremely graphic video began to play. The sounds of overacted sex filled the room as I scrambled to close the window.

"Is everything okay?" Edward asked, a playful smile twinkling beneath his apparently concerned expression.

I slammed the laptop shut and hastily scribbled "limit."

Eventually, I made it past triple penetration (thanks, but no thanks) and vampire scenes (which I circled and surrounded with stars and happy faces), and I found myself at the end of the list.

I put my pen down and looked at Edward, who was still reading. There was something I loved in the way the tendons of his fingers flexed as he turned the page. I realized I hadn't heard him play any music since the day in the park, and I made a mental note to make him sit down at the piano soon.

He raised his eyes before I spoke. "Finished, love?" He held out his hand and I gave him the list. I was thankful he was a fast reader because I held my breath as he began to peruse my answers. He must have noticed my anxiety because he pulled me close to him and absently stroked my hair while he read through the list twice.

As he reached the end of the first time through, he began to stiffen noticeably. By the time he had finished reading, his gentle caress had tensed until his fingernails raked across my neck so roughly that I had to pull away.

"Bella." His voice held the low rumble of a warning. "I can't help noticing that you've made a limit out of almost everything we haven't yet done, and that you claim not to have enjoyed almost everything we _have_ done. So I think I have to ask: are you being honest with me?"

_No. I'm afraid._ "Of _course_ I am."

He chuckled flatly and clicked his tongue. "Your heartbeat changes when you lie, Bella. You must know that I can feel it through the bed."

_Don't blush, Bella. Don't blush. Stop blushing. _My body was such a fucking traitor. "I . . . um . . ."

"The monster doesn't like it when you don't tell the truth. It's very important to me that you trust me, because if you don't, it seems like you're not _mine_." He ran the back of a cool finger down the side of my face. The hair on my skin stood as his light touch passed. "But the monster loves it when you blush. You know that, too. It brings so much blood so close to the surface." He moved closer so that his lips almost brushed my cheek when he spoke. "Reminds me that there's nothing but your thin, soft skin between me and all that living, pulsing warmth. Although, of course, I could simply drink from your lips instead. They're red _all_ the time."

Then, suddenly, he had moved away and was glancing around the room. "But that's not the point right now, is it? We were talking about the importance of honesty." His eyes settled on a scarf I had left draped over my computer chair. "Ah. That will do nicely."

As soon as I saw that he had moved, he was back at my side, running the scarf through his fingers. "In the interest of trust, I'd like to try a little experiment. It says on this list that you wouldn't like it if I tied this scarf across your eyes, but that's a lie, isn't it? I think I'm going to do it anyway. If you really want me to stop, all you have to do is say your safe word." He raised an eyebrow at me, smirking coldly. "But I'm betting you won't."

Wait, maybe I'd been too conservative on the list, but now he was just going to ignore it completely? _Esme. Esme!_ In my head I was shouting it, but my lips wouldn't move. Because he was right? I closed my eyes as Edward wrapped the scarf around my head, the fibers rough against my eyelids. There was a tickle at the back of my head as he deftly tied the fabric, just tight enough that I couldn't blink.

He lowered me to the bed and removed my clothing with surprising gentleness, and I was excited but comfortable until his hands left my body. Anxiously, I strained to hear the rustle of his movements over my own shallow breathing. I was certain he was next to my ear, then far from me, then, a moment later, I wondered if he was even in the room at all.

And then, without warning, I felt his teeth slice into the muscle above my shoulder, and I melted in the expectation of bliss. That wasn't what I got. Instead, it was a deep, sweetly tearing pain, not enough to make me cry out, but enough to make me flail at Edward in surprise. Enough to feed a different kind of ache that was building in my core.

Edward snatched my wrists and, before I knew what was happening, he had bound them somehow to the head of the bed. "If you want me to stop, then say it," he said through clenched teeth.

I didn't say it. He peppered my body with small bites at inhuman speed, randomly so that I couldn't predict his movements. Neck, thigh, wrist, shoulder . . . the pain crescendoed until all my blood was alive with sensation and I writhed in half agony, half ecstasy. I couldn't bear it for another second, and I wanted it never to stop.

Soon, it was so intense that he didn't even have to bite me anymore, and he withdrew from me and spoke as his venom coursed through my system. "Do you feel that, love? Different, isn't it?" My core spasmed at the wicked satisfaction in his voice. "It's nothing like my lust or my love. What you feel now, _this_ is my anger. Do you like it?"

I could only respond with a small, pleading moan. I didn't know what I was pleading for. "But, more importantly, do you understand _why_ I'm angry? It's because this isn't _fair_." He slapped my breast hard on the last word, and I felt it in my clit, reverberating through my whole body like an electric shock. I cried out, and he growled softly.

"It's safer for you this way, I think, pretending that I use you against your will. But I won't play the villain to your innocent victim, forcing you through every touch when I _know_ you want this as much as I do. If I'm responsible, then so are you. So if you're not going to admit you need me, then stop me."

As he spoke, the fire in my body had burned itself out to a mellow, dark ache, but now he returned his teeth to my skin in earnest. This time, he drank from me, and the bites were deep and slow, increasingly full of lust as his breath grew heavy. With each taste, he demanded an answer that I could not give.

His lips were cool behind my jaw as the warmth pulsed out. "Say it." His harsh voice tickled my ear.

I shivered at the slick caress of his tongue as he licked at the blood that pooled on my abdomen. "Say it."

He groaned with abandon as he drank from the crease above my thigh, and as he tore himself away, he cried out desperately, "Say _something_!"

Each moan, each command, each touch of his tongue and teeth brought me higher and higher, until I found myself on the verge of a dangerous plunge. All my fears became visceral, embodied in the fluttering panic of my heartbeat and the clenching time bomb in my core, hesitating at the point of explosion.

I could almost see the hungry chasm of my blackest needs opening up beneath me, waiting to consume me in rapture. I clung to the edge above it, afraid of losing my self and my self-control, torn in equal parts terror and longing at the possibility that Edward might show me the shameful secrets of my own soul.

Then, finally, the pressure of my building desire surpassed the intensity of my doubts and fears. I was certain there was only one way down, and I was ready to take it.

"_Yes_!" I screamed. "It's what I fucking need!" He snarled and sank his teeth into my clit.

I stepped into the dark, and fell, and fell.

* * *

It must not have taken long for me to fade back in to a languid, blissful awareness of my surroundings, because the first thing I noticed was his tongue carefully retrieving the final drops of blood from between my legs. I tried to reach down and touch him, and was briefly annoyed to discover that my hands were still tied.

However, between my sleepy serenity and the soothing coolness of Edward's deliberate touch tracing my folds, all annoyance evaporated. I was surprised to find that, as soon as I relaxed my arms, my hands fell easily out of the straps that had been holding them in place. I slid the blindfold up, away from my eyes, and watched his hair bobbing slightly as he took his time consuming the very last traces, making a few tiny grunts of pleasure. It was kind of cute.

My fingers had barely brushed the fringe of his bangs when he jolted upright so fast I felt the breeze on my stomach. I could tell by his mortified expression that he had not noticed I was awake, and he turned away from me, raising a hand to cover his blood smeared mouth.

I tried to sit up to put my arms around him, but, as soon as I moved, the strength evaporated from my body, and I flopped back on to the pillows. "Edward . . ." I began weakly.

"Fuck. _Fuck._ I can't believe I messed things up again already. That was the worst possible . . . When you _explicitly _told me not to, when it was written down right in front of me . . . Jesus Christ, that's like rape. I'm a goddamn rapist. You'll never—"

"Edward," I said again with all the force I could manage, which wasn't much. "I'm really dizzy."

"Oh. Shit." Still not looking at me, he reached behind his back and picked up my arm. His strong fingers felt nice against my wrist. Beneath the anxiety, I could hear some degree of relief in his voice when he said, "Your pulse is okay. I'm going to get you some orange juice, though."

"No!" I felt an irrationally urgent desperation to have him close. "Stay. Please."

"But . . . what I did . . . You do realize that was—"

"Yeah, I know, I was stupid, and we have to talk about it. But can we please do it later? Right now I just need you to hold me so badly."

He wiped his face with his hand, surreptitiously sucking my blood off his knuckle as he finally turned to face me.

My eyelids were already fluttering shut as I nestled against him, wrapped in a blanket and his strong, protective arms.

His chest rumbled next to my cheek as he spoke. "I can't believe I did that to you. The scariest part is, at the time I thought I was doing the right thing. I felt like I was doing you a _favor_. God, Bella, how can you even look at me?"

"Juss less talk aboud it lader, okay?" My words began to slur as the rising tide of sleep tugged me gently away, smoothing the problems of right and wrong, violation and trust, into apparent insignificance, leaving me lost in a single, boundless moment. And for that moment, I was floating, free, and safe, and happy in the arms of the beautiful one who loved me.

I smiled dreamily at Edward's hand on my shoulder and the warmth of the sunlight on my eyelids. So lovely . . .

I snapped awake when I realized he was shaking me urgently. "Bella. Wake up," he whispered with aggravated intensity.

His red eyes were wide with panic, and I could swear that the hand on my shoulder was colder than usual and shaking slightly. He still held an open cell phone in his other hand. My stomach wrenched violently as I mentally listed the things that could have made him this upset.

None of them were good news. I looked up at him in apprehension.

His hand tightened on my shoulder. "It's Esme."

**Btw, the final round of voting for the Indies starts July 22nd.**

**A final post-disclaimer: Unless you know something I don't, please don't try this at home. Even if your super-senses enable you to monitor the health and comfort of your sub, ignoring his/her stated limits for any reason could have disastrous consequences.**

**Anyway, what do you think? Love it? Hate it? Think I need therapy, or just a cold shower? :)**


	11. Three of a Kind

**A/N: This took much longer than I expected. Unlike Edward, apparently I **_**can**_ **get sick.**

**Thanks for the reviews as usual – it looks like I might not get to answer every one, but I love them all and read them many times.**

**Also many thanks to everyone who voted for this story at the Indies—**_**The Monster and I**_ **made it to the final round in both Best AU and Best Undiscovered Erotica! You are awesome and I am thrilled!**

**Thanks to Lola84 for putting up with my crap.**

**Don't own nothin'.**

**Carlisle's POV:**

It was strange to be back here after all these years. It seemed so much the same; my heightened senses did nothing to improve the dullness of the pale green hallway or its coldly oppressive fluorescent lighting. Even to me, this place was devoid of texture, the colors distant and dim. The only difference was the polished floor which once appeared so shiny and sterile, but now seemed smeared with footprints and grimy at the edges. There was a crumpled candy bar wrapper that had been tossed against the wall behind a cart of overcooked tray dinners. The neutral smell of dry mashed potatoes and mushy peas mingled with the stinging chemical scent of disinfectants.

The whole place reeked of hopelessness and death. The fear of those waiting to be extinguished, and the sadness of those clinging helplessly to the last breaths of those they loved.

When George Newton phoned, I was at first too angry to register the despair and exhaustion in his voice. How dare he call me up and make small talk when the man had married the love of my life? He had always been uncomfortably gregarious, but did he not realize it took every ounce of my self control to keep from smashing the phone against the wall and then hunting him down? I had no energy left to keep up the pretense of a civil chat.

"So why are you calling me, George?" I snapped, interrupting some inanity about the weather.

"Oh." His voice fell and I wondered briefly if for some reason he had actually needed the conversation. "I . . . have bad news, I'm afraid. It's about Esme.

I don't know if she told you this, but Esme has lung cancer." He paused and cleared his throat. "It's been a little over two years."

_Two years?_ That meant she knew she had it the last time we spoke and she didn't tell me. _I'm a fucking medical professional, for Christ's sake! Why didn't you come to me? How am I supposed to protect you when I don't even know you're in danger?_ It was okay, I told myself. They had come to me now. I had connections. The best doctors, the most promising new treatments . . . I could fix this.

"It was in remission for a while, but now things are . . . things are really bad." His voice broke a little.

_How bad? _My stomach clenched. Why would he call me if it was too late?

"They're saying days, maybe . . . less than days."

_Days? No. No. _I stood there, speechless and wavering, clutching the phone to my ear as he continued.

"It's none of my business what happened between you two, but I know that as it gets closer to . . . the end, she's talking more and more about you and Edward, and she speaks of you so fondly . . . I thought you should have a chance to see her one more time. It might . . . I think it might mean something to her."

* * *

So now here I was, lurking awkwardly and uselessly in the hospital hallway while the nurses did their work, trying not to think about the information they had given me and trying to ignore the surreal familiarity of the place.

This is where our children had died, before they were even born. Every time I came here in the course of my work, and even now, after all of these years, I felt the traces of that crushing sadness, the torture of witnessing Esme's pain.

And this is where we had come to take Edward home. Even though it was a human memory, I could recall with perfect clarity Esme's glowing, smitten face.

Out the window, I saw a bronze-haired little boy dashing up the hospital steps toward the maternity entrance. Maybe there was hope somewhere in this hospital, even if it was difficult to see under these sickly lights.

Edward appeared at the end of the hallway, clearly struggling to maintain an inconspicuous human pace. "Where is she?" he asked breathlessly as soon as he reached me.

"In there," I told him, holding out an arm to keep him from going in. "She's with the nurses right now. We can see her in a minute."

As I finished speaking, a nurse pulled back the yellow curtain that separated us from Esme, and Edward rushed into the room.

She smiled broadly when she saw him, but her voice was soft and crackling. "You came."

"Of course." His eyes dimmed as he took in her frail form.

Esme had always been slight, but now she was withered, the skin sagging from her fingers and wrists. Her hair was thin and straggly, her eyes red, and her lips cracked and dry. She raised her hand to her pale forehead in a worried gesture I knew so well.

She was so beautiful to me, I almost forgot to breathe.

"Come in, Carlisle," she rasped graciously, and I realized that I had been hovering in the doorway.

As I pulled up a chair and sat down, I was flooded with a wave of vampire anger at her for keeping this from me until I couldn't stop it. _What the fuck were you thinking?_

I opened my mouth to speak, but she cut me off, her tone bright but forceful. "So what have you boys been up to?" The look in her eye said she knew what I was going to say and didn't want to hear it. She was so strong, in her way, even now.

I was at a loss as to what to tell her—_Alcoholic binges? Alienating our son and his girlfriend? Sitting around the house doing fuck-all?—_so I was glad when Edward answered. "I'm staring my second year—"

"Taking Music at Cornish," she finished with a small smile. "With a focus on composition."

"How did you know?"

"I've been keeping an eye on you, dear. But I always knew it would be music." She was interrupted by a fit of coughing that shook her small body, but she delicately wiped her mouth with a tissue and soldiered on. "Any young ladies in your life?" She winked conspiratorially.

If I didn't know better, I could have sworn that Edward was blushing. "Well, actually, yeah . . . her name is Bella. I think you two would really like each other."

"That's wonderful, Edward. I'm so proud of you."

She shifted in bed and her lower calf slipped out from under the sheet. That was when I noticed the mottled purplish color of her legs, concrete evidence that death was not far away.

No.

I could not let this happen. I would not.

Esme was everything. Losing her love had been one thing, but could there even be a world at all if she wasn't in it?

But there were no options. Any traditional treatment was far past the point of usefulness, even the healing properties of my venom would not be enough to stop this now . . .

_My venom._

The tightness in my chest evaporated as I ballooned with hope. I wasn't helpless at all.

My chair scraped loudly against the floor as I stood up. "I know what to do! I think that if I change you—I can save you, Esme."

"Oh, Carlisle, no." The sadness in her eyes was not what I had expected.

"What do you mean? You know that Edward has never been sick. We heal so quickly, I wouldn't think it possible if I hadn't witnessed it myself. I can do it before George gets back, and you'll be recovered by the end of the day. Like magic, you'll see."

I moved toward the bed. The longer I waited, the greater the chances that the stress of the transformation would kill her before she could heal.

"Carlisle, stop." Her determination was clear even though her voice wavered. "I'm not meant to be a vampire."

"But you'll die." What was she saying?

"Then it's time," she almost whispered.

"It's _time_?" I had always admired Esme's faith for the courage and comfort it gave her, but the man and the vampire in me were in full agreement on this: it wasn't just some bullshit about "God's plan" and the importance of acceptance that was preventing me from saving my wife. How could she know that _I_ wasn't part of God's fucking plan?

The man and the vampire agreed, but it was the vampire who spoke. "You don't mean it's your goddamn _time_, you mean you'd rather die than be like me. Like your own _son_. You abandoned us once, and now you want to do it again. Well, _fine_. Just don't pretend it's not your decision."

She closed her eyes and raised her hand to her forehead. "Please, Carlisle. Not like this. So tired . . . hurts . . ."

My heart cracked a little. "Let me fix it," I pleaded softly.

She was asleep. For a minute or two, there was silence.

"Should we do it anyway?" Edward asked, his voice carefully quiet and even. I had almost forgotten he was here.

"What?" We couldn't do that. Could we?

"I don't think she understands what it's really like. I mean, it's not worse than dying, is it? And we don't have time to convince her, and it's a life or death situation . . ." The eyes looking up into mine were not those of the confident young man I knew. They were the eyes of a frightened child, looking for an answer, any answer, that would save the mother who had held and accepted him for so many important years of his life. Sometimes I forgot how young he still was, how much he needed the few people who loved him.

_How young we all are, how much we all need to be loved, at times like this._ I was surprised by the sound of my own voice, as small and afraid as Edward's. "I'm not even sure if I know how to do it."

"I think it must be like when we change the sensations our venom makes. If you think about turning her, maybe you can make the right venom instinctively?"

So I tried it. _No decisions yet. Just an experiment, to see if it could work._ I pictured Esme's body healing with magical rapidity, the change in the color of her eyes, a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth as she drank from the neck of a deer.

The sensations in my mouth were unlike anything I had experienced before, the venom alternately cold and hot. It tasted of _everything_: strawberries, grass, wood, dirt, metal, salt, chocolate, dust . . . it was terrible, yet strangely mesmerizing.

It must be working.

I didn't know if it was enough, so I concentrated harder and thought of more images. I saw Esme running through a forest at superhuman speed, Esme tracking a person by scent, Esme effortlessly lifting a stack of boxes too heavy for one person to manage.

The venom became agitated, swirling in my mouth of its own accord.

But was it enough? I imagined her drinking from every animal I could think of, large and small. Rabbits, bears, birds, mice, elephants, people . . .

The venom began to crackle and fizz. I had to press my lips together to prevent it from escaping.

_It's time,_ said the vampire, and I obeyed.

Edward raised a hand but didn't get up as I crawled above my sleeping Esme and sank my teeth into the slow pulse at her neck. For the first time, my venom blended with her blood.

_Fuck. _She tasted sweet as sunlight and rich as the earth. In any other situation, I would have wondered if I were capable of stopping myself. But here, right now, it wasn't about those baser needs at all.

Well, not for me, anyway. Her moan of pleasure was deeper and more wanton than anything I had ever elicited in our years together, and she dug her nails into my forearms with surprising strength for her condition. I tried to ignore her grinding against me.

And then it changed, as I had expected and dreaded. She was screaming, clawing at my chest and face, trying to writhe out from under me. _This is necessary_, I reminded myself to strengthen my will as I held her in place. I needed to finish.

An interminable moment later, it was done. My instincts said to release her, so I held on a little longer, just to be sure, and then I did.

It was better than magic. It was miraculous. Esme blossomed before my eyes. The bloom spread from the neck down, her muscles rounding and firming, filling out the empty skin. The gray tones of her face and the purplish blotching on her legs faded into a delicate white paleness. Her thin, chapped lips grew full and healed, the small cuts healing and the dead skin falling away.

Here, now, was the Esme I knew and loved—with one small exception, of course. Her beautiful blue eyes grew clear, but the irises filled with black as though ink were poured into them.

She gripped the hospital blanket, and I watched the movement of her hand and arm, her innate grace expressed in the newly formed flesh. She was radiant.

But she was still in pain. She needed blood. What the hell was I thinking? Why didn't I tell Edward to go steal a fucking blood bag? Minutes of agony that I could have prevented with a clearer head . . .

Before I could actually move, George Newton came through the door with a tray of Starbuck's coffee. "Sorry, everyone, you would not _believe_ the line-up down there. I'm telling you, it was—"

She was on him like a jaguar, like a magnet, like a killing machine. Wiry, fast, and so strong it took both Edward and I to pull her off his neck as she gurgled and grunted madly.

He was alive. His wound sealed itself as he slid down the door, coming to rest in a puddle of coffee streaked with blood. He said nothing, his eyes wide, mouth gaping.

As she swallowed the last of the blood, Esme came back to fuzzy awareness. "Oh . . . Oh, my . . . George . . ."

"_Esme?_" His eyes flicked rapidly between her, Edward, and I. "What _are _you?" he wondered aloud, pulling his knees up to his chest, shaking noticeably.

Edward thought fast. "I think you know, George. But if you leave right now you can forget all about it, and _never tell anyone_ what you have seen, and then we won't have to kill you. Right?" He wouldn't actually have murdered George; the fluid, emotionless predator's voice that Edward had adopted was an act. I was reasonably sure.

But it seemed to be having the desired chilling effect on George. "Right. I'll go now and stay very, very quiet. Stay away and never tell what I . . . whatever this is. Secret's safe with me!" His attempt at a smile was more pitiful than reassuring.

He seemed to be waiting for some sort of answer from me, so I nodded once. It was all he needed.

His hands still shaking, he reached behind his head to turn the knob and crept out of the room on his hands and knees, never turning his back on us as the door clicked shut. We all felt the vibrations of his fast footsteps echoing down the hall.

I was sure Esme would be devastated by that display. Remembering my own first victim, I turned to her, ready to offer what emotional support I could, but it seemed that her focus had changed already.

She had pulled a tissue from the box on her bedside table and was holding it up to the light. "Carlisle, look at all the tiny fibers. Everything is so beautiful, how can you _stand_ it?" She turned to me and smiled.

Edward left the room, but I didn't ask where he was going; I was far too fascinated by the lovely woman before me, completely absorbed in the examination of everything around her. She counted the threads in the stiff hospital sheets. She pressed her hand against the wall to feel the texture of its chipped paint and the movements of the people outside the room. She wrinkled her nose at the pudding dish on her tray and poked her head out the window so she could smell the wind.

I didn't remember being so caught up as this in my expanded senses, but I must have been just as foolishly delighted by every sight and sound as my Esme.

I relived that delight as I allowed her to lead me around the room, expressing her joy over the most mundane of objects. I wanted to cling to these beautiful moments as long as possible. Surely it wouldn't be long until she realized what she had done to George—and what I had done to her without her permission—but I hoped she would let me be there to help her navigate the complexity of her new vampire emotions.

To my surprise, she was still engaged in her experimentation when Edward returned more than an hour later. I _knew_ I hadn't gone on this long before I had been sobered by the reality of my transformation, but I was happy to see her still free from pain, laughing the sparking laugh that had been in my dreams for years. Finding no more interesting smells or textures in the room, she was now lifting heavy objects and dashing back and forth at the greatest speed she could manage in the small space.

Edward had a mop and a bucket in his hands, and with unrestrained speed he cleaned the blood and coffee from the walls and floor. I still don't know how he did this—I imagine it required some combination of threat, bribery, and vampire charm—but he informed us that Esme would be allowed to leave without comment or inquiry.

"Esme, love, would you like to go home?" I asked, terrified and impatient to hear her answer.

She smiled with all the innocence and enthusiasm of a child. "Oh, yes, please. There will be more things to look at, won't there?"

I ignored the crease in Edward's forehead as he ran a hand through his hair. Who cared if she was acting a little odd? Edward was practically born a vampire; he didn't remember how stressful the transformation process could be.

If I was worried, I didn't dwell on it. Edward and I had Esme, and that was the important thing. Everything else would fall into place now that we were together.

The three of us. Just as it always should have been.

**I'll be on vacation sans laptop next week, so don't expect the next update for a while, but if all goes according to plan it will have super double twisted lemons of a kind I have never attempted before!**

**Voting at the Indies closes Wednesday at midnight.**

**Ideas? Opinions? General feelings of pleasure or disgust? Review me! I'd love to hear your thoughts.**


	12. Gifts

**A/N: Well, I have been remiss, to say the least. Naughty, even. I am very, very sorry for the unintended hiatus, but also extremely happy to have finished my degree with my GPA intact – which means that now I have enough time and brain strength to dedicate to this story. I think we're slightly more than halfway through, and I hope you will join me for the rest – I promise to do my best to make it worth your time. **

**I have made a couple of small edits to the previous chapters, but nothing major – I just had to fix the problem areas that were bothering me and/or my beta. **

**Thanks very much to my beta Lola84, to everyone who sent me encouraging reviews and messages while I didn't have time to write, and to all of you who are reading now for giving me a second chance. **

**If you'd like a refresher of what has happened up to now, PM me and I will send you a (very) short summary.**

**I still don't own **_**Twilight**_**.**

**Carlisle's POV: **

"It's so hard to believe she'll really be here when I come home tomorrow." Edward was standing on the driveway in the darkening twilight, his face illuminated by the light that spilled through the open front door. His smile was so broad it affected all of his features, making him look younger and brighter than I had seen him in a long time. All traces of his earlier unease had vanished; he had finally accepted what a miracle this was.

"She _will_ be. Go make things right with Bella." He hadn't shared exactly what had happened, but he'd told us he had made a mistake and needed to apologize.

At my mention of Bella, Edward tried to calm his expression into a mask of serious regret, but the smile kept springing back onto his face. The sight was unintentionally comical, and my laugh was so joyous, so devoid of irony, that I barely recognized the sound as coming from me.

Edward turned with a sheepish wave and got into his car.

After he was gone, I stayed in the doorway for a while, enjoying the cool air, the low chorus of crickets, and the dim sky that suffused streetlights and windows with a soft, peaceful glow. I soaked up my newfound happiness.

There was a bag of garbage by the door, and I carried it out to the can. It was light but bulky, full of takeout boxes. Esme had excitedly insisted on cooking what she claimed would be her "first real dinner," but when Edward and I finished setting the table, we returned to the kitchen to find the chicken shriveled in the frying pan, charred and smoking. Esme was studying the marble counter top with spellbound attention, carried away by her senses yet somehow oblivious to the smell of burning.

It didn't matter at all. We cleaned up the mess and ordered Thai delivery.

After her first few rapturous bites, Esme became more focused as we ate. She questioned Edward endlessly about Bella, his friends, and his upcoming classes. I watched her hands flit from the lace tablecloth to the side of her glass to the rim of her plate as she took in all the textures around her, her gaze never leaving Edward's animated face. I said little, perfectly content to watch them together again at my table.

After dinner, Edward played his newest pieces for Esme, pausing between each one to discuss her favorite parts and ideas for improvement, just as they had done when he was in high school. If Edward felt he had outgrown her amateur advice, he didn't show it, excitedly scribbling notes as they talked.

The last fledgling piece Edward played was his new lullaby for Bella, and Esme leaned into the leather couch and closed her eyes as she listened to the hauntingly beautiful melody. As the music began to build, something magical happened: she slipped her slender hand into mine. I tightened my fingers around hers almost imperceptibly, afraid to breathe lest I startle her away and shatter the moment, too often dreamed of to be real.

The lullaby was unfinished, and when Edward stopped halfway through, our hands flew apart.

But now, as the darkening air neared the temperature of her skin, the tingle of possibility still lingered on my palm, ignited by that tentative touch. I took a deep breath of the quiet night and headed toward the light of my own front door.

In the hallway, my shadow flickered softly against the wall. It seemed Esme had turned off every light in the house, but I followed the candlelight and her achingly familiar scent. Apple and honeysuckle—the smell exactly the same as all the times I had replayed it in my mind, so much so that it felt as if I were walking through a memory.

I turned the corner and there she was. Unsure of why I was so afraid to speak, I followed the play of the glowing light with my eyes as it danced across her slender arms and the curves not quite concealed by her yellow dress. She was holding her finger over a flame, watching the skin redden and blister, then holding the finger before her eyes, watching mesmerized until it healed. Then she put her finger in the fire again.

_Don't hurt yourself_, the man and the protective monster thought in unison, but I swallowed the command before I could speak it. Instead I said only her name.

"Esme." It was a question, an invitation. _I'm here. Will you talk with me?_

"I would be dead by now," she said distantly, still focused on the candle, as though she were speaking about the weather or the grocery list. "You saved my life."

"I—"

"I understand how it was for you, now. The things I want, the things I want to _do_ . . . It's so sudden. Was it so sudden for you? That's not what I remember. And I'm afraid this need is bigger than I am, I'm afraid there's no room left within myself for the person I was. I think I must be someone else now, because that person would be truly repulsed by these things that I . . ." She adjusted the watch band on her narrow wrist with a gesture I had memorized.

"But it's not just _what_ I want, it's _how much_ I want it. I think—if you hadn't stopped me, I think I might have killed George. And the worst part is I'm not even sure if I _care_ about that, Carlisle. It's one thing to have these terrible desires, but to have them and not regret them?"

What could I say? Did she want me to hold her? I remained still.

She turned to look at me now, her eyes wide and bewildered. "My whole life I've tried, maybe harder than some, to be a good person, to do good things. But I'm not good anymore, am I, Carlisle?"

Again, I had no answer to give. Instead, I closed the distance between us and took her in my arms.

She rested against me, light as a bird. "You're still the one I love." I had not meant to say it again so soon.

She chuckled in a small, sad way. "Hmm, yes . . . emotions. I do seem to be good at _feeling_ . . . I can feel everything now. Can I really be evil, truly evil, if everywhere I look I see the beauty of the world? Everything I hear and touch, so marvelously intense and alive . . ." She traced my shoulder blade with the finger she had burned, which was now, of course, completely healed.

"I can't help noticing it all, and how perfect everything is. You smell like scotch and old books, with a hint of leather and furniture polish. Still spending too much time in your office, I imagine." As she spoke, she caressed the back of my neck, so lightly, with her fingertips.

She ran her other hand down my arm like a blind woman trying to learn it. "I can feel your vaccine scar through your shirt, and the tendons on the inside of your arm twitching in response to my touch. You're trying to be still, but I feel all the tension in your body, the suppressed desire."

Her hand came to rest around my clenched fist. "I feel your heartbeat echoing here. I want to crawl inside, where it's safe. There's no right or wrong left in your heart, is there? Only rhythm and blood. And your passion—I smell it."

And I smelled hers, like alcohol and woodsmoke. A foreign smell, but it called to me. Through our touching hands, I felt the rushing of her pulse. Our lips crashed together and I heard nothing but her heartbeat and the rise and fall of her chest. It was like being underwater, if Esme were the sea that had swallowed me whole.

We surfaced for breath and I threw her onto the table top. Something glass shattered beneath her, sending the stinging vapor of her blood in the air and making me dizzy with need. Her fingernails tore straight through my shirt and grazed my back, and then I was bleeding also, and naked from the waist up.

I had waited so long . . . . I wanted to pause this moment, to stop and look into her eyes, but she had already removed my belt. She threw it across the room and laughed when it smashed into a picture frame. My fly was undone with vampire speed, and my hands hiked up her dress of their own accord, leaving long red scratches on her thighs as they went. _Her thighs are mine._ Her underwear tore like tissue.

_All of her, mine_. I thought of George Newton's hands on her body and I wanted to hurt her when I entered her. When I thrust in roughly, she cried out like a wild animal, grabbing my ass to seek deeper invasion. I gave it all my strength, grunting, but apparently it wasn't enough. She moaned in frustration and flipped us over, my back alive with pain as she pressed me into the shattered dishes.

Stronger than I was, she held me down and ground against me, her back arched in abandon, her eyes closed, wholly engrossed in her own pleasure. She was more radiant, more powerful than I had ever seen her, and I feasted my eyes with admiration even as I tried to writhe out of her grasp so I could crush her perfect body beneath me.

She opened her eyes as if inspired and, holding me down effortlessly with one hand, she grasped a shard of glass with her slender fingers. Still fucking me, her core silky and grasping, she sliced a neat line down the side of my cheek. A drop of blood clung to her finger, and she raised it to her mouth and looked into my eyes as she tasted me. A tremor of pleasure shook her whole body.

She bent down and licked along the cut, her saliva bringing a more pleasurable kind of pain, and an image of the vampire James flashed into and out of my mind.

Then she seemed almost to forget me again, moaning with her head thrown back, and I felt her inner muscles quiver as her climax approached. I followed close behind, responding to her rapture and her savage beauty.

As she finished, she bit into me, tearing flesh, and the pain was terrible but I came anyway, shuddering.

When it was over, she released me and rolled onto her back. We stayed there for a long time without moving, feeling the stinging slivers of glass against our skin and the solid wood of the table beneath us.

* * *

**Bella's POV:**

And so I sat there, staring at the trunk.

Edward had mentioned it last night, and it was in my room when I woke up. I had ignored it pretty successfully for most of the day, since there were more important things to think about. I tried to get a head start on my homework, hoping to distract myself from worrying about Edward's mother and what he must be going through. I hated that there was nothing I could do to make things better for him.

But when Edward called and told me how Carlisle had saved Esme, my mind relaxed out of crisis mode and I began to think about the trunk again.

I couldn't bring myself to open it. Edward would see my fingerprints on the lid or something and then he would know that his perverted girlfriend had spent the evening looking at bondage toys. But I couldn't just leave it alone either. There were secrets in there—secrets I had been keeping from myself—and I wanted to know them.

I just wasn't sure if I wanted _Edward_ to know them.

So I sat on my bed, looking at the beat up wooden lid and thinking.

I thought about Edward, and how he had pushed me beyond the boundaries I thought I had, to beautiful heights and depths I would never have experienced otherwise. But how could I know he wouldn't push too far? Had he pushed too far already? He'd hit me, insulted me, set up rules to make me safe and then ignored them.

_And you loved it all_. Well, most of it.

But how was Edward supposed to know what was too far and what was exactly far enough when after our first time I had been saying no to everything and expecting him to guess when I really meant it? He was right, last night, when he said that I cornered him into forcing me so I wouldn't have to admit what I wanted—to him, or, really, to myself. I couldn't expect him to know when to stop when I hadn't even thought honestly about what my limits were.

Okay, I would have to be more honest. For my own safety, and because Edward deserved it.

Which meant that Edward could know that I wanted to look inside that trunk.

The stuff in the trunk actually looked pretty innocuous after I'd spent the day avoiding it: ropes, chains, various leather things, and books that explained how to use them. Everything was completely covered in dust, except for the books, which were much cleaner and had creases down the spines. Edward was hard on books.

It wasn't until then that I really understood. Edward hadn't brought this trunk here because he thought it would be fun to try out some new toys; he brought it here because he wanted to fix things for me. I saw the number of books, each one creased like the last, and I knew he had been up all night reading them, learning how to make things safer and easier. For me.

What I was realizing now, I thought, Edward the vampire had known all along, but Edward the man was as much in the dark as I had been. I knew how guilty he was feeling, and I had been letting him feel that way.

Edward thought that he was only taking what he wanted, forcing me into submission. But when what he wanted was my surrender to the pleasure he gave me, then everything we did was about my desires even more than it was about his.

I opened the lid of the trunk wider and ran my fingers down a leather strap, leaving shiny black trails in the thick layer of dust.

And I started to think about how I could say thank you.

* * *

I had just realized that I was reading the same page of _Emma_ for the third time when I finally heard the knock I had been waiting for.

_Don't answer. If you're fast enough, there's still time to get changed and hide everything . . . _

_Come on, Bella. Be brave. Honesty, remember? It's not like he's a stranger. _I put my book aside and arranged myself in what I hoped was a flattering position.

"I'm in here." Without preternatural senses, there was no way he could have heard my shaky, half-mumbled invitation.

He was talking as he opened my bedroom door. "Bella, so much has happened today but I want you to know that I haven't forgotten about what I did to you, and I'm so—"

And then he saw me, and he made a small noise I couldn't decipher. And he stared.

I knew he could see the nervous flush spreading down my chest and feel my heartbeat quiver with uncertainty. I wished I could read him so easily. I yearned for a blanket or pillow—anything that would hide my skin from his impenetrable eyes. With great difficulty, I willed myself still and waited.

The scandalously high heels and the lacy black underwear were mine, bought at the urging of friends back in Phoenix and never worn before. The collar, on the other hand, had come from the trunk.

Edward wasn't saying anything. I was just about to start apologizing, to explain that I had misunderstood everything and made a terrible and mortifying mistake, when he cleared his throat.

"Are you sure?" His voice was soft and restrained.

"I'm sorry," I started, curling up with my knees hugged in front of my chest. It was the most modest position I could manage. "I know I've been holding back from you, making you into the villain, like you said, and I wanted to show you that it doesn't have to be like that. I can be different. I made a new list, and . . . I want to tell you the truth." I took the paper with my new set of limits from the nightstand and held it out to him, my eyes on the bedspread.

"I see," he said. There was an edge of coldness in his voice; was it desire, or only lack of interest? "It appears that you've been doing a little light reading." _The_ _New Bottoming Book_ was lying open, spine up, on the corner of the bed. "That collar you're wearing—what does it mean to you, love?"

"Trust," I said shakily. "Obedience." Could he hear the flutter of anticipation as it echoed in my breathing? "While I wear it I belong to you, to . . . to please you."

"And you do." I looked up in time to see him smile cockily and scan my body with a proprietary gaze. "You look beautiful, acknowledging my claim on you so freely. Quite delectable." He came closer, and traced the edge of the collar with chilling fingertips. "Of course, you'd look better on your knees."

I obliged, moving my legs away from my chest and kneeling on the bed before him.

"No." His expression hardened in annoyance. "On the floor."

I knelt at his feet, aware of the carpet rough against my skin. He let me sit there for a few long moments, my shallow breaths the only sound in the room. Coming closer, he trailed a hand loosely along my hair and down my exposed back, which tingled under the light brush of his fingernails. Electric with anticipation, I remained still; I would not move until he told me otherwise. I felt almost like an object, a possession of Edward's to use as he liked—and my body _wanted_ to be used—but also like a generous goddess, giving myself up to become the shining center of his world.

He stepped in front of me and lifted my bowed head so my eyes were level with the fly of his tightening jeans. _Oh. _I licked my lips, guessing what he would ask.

"Is there something you want, pet?"

"Yes." _I want you in my mouth. To make you moan and shudder the way I have for you. Please let me. _

"Hmmm, let's try something." His tone was playful yet menacing. "Call me . . . _sir_."

"I want . . . to suck your cock, sir." _Did I really just say that?_ The gushing in my core suggested that I had.

Edward's words came out in a half moan. "Good girl." He unzipped his fly for me. "Go ahead."

His shape was solid, curved and cool against the roof of my mouth, and it warmed as I traced the end of his shaft with my tongue. I tasted salt, and a little sweetness. I took him deeper, running my teeth along him as I sucked, and he purred. His smell was faint, but it called to the lustful animal in me, making me dizzy with want. I moaned around him.

As his cock neared the temperature of my mouth, he took my hair in his fists, clenching them so I felt the pull along my scalp. He held my head still, forcing himself deeper, pounding far enough into my throat to make me gag. He let up when I started to choke, but only for a moment, fucking my face until I figured out the rhythm and started breathing through my nose.

He slipped further down my throat. "_Fuck_, yes." His hands wound tighter in my hair. "Take it," he growled.

I did. I took the violation I had asked for, and the strangely peaceful sensation that came with it: the utter simplicity of existing, for this moment, only for him.

His pace became fast and irregular, and I prepared myself for the salt taste of his pleasure. Instead, he harshly shoved me away from him, my elbow grazing the carpet as I hit the ground.

"You didn't think you were getting off that easy, did you, pet?" I looked up, slightly dazed, at his breathless sneer.

He lifted me to the bed as though I were weightless. "You've been so honest with me, such a good girl, and I think it's only fair for me to be just as honest with you. I think it's time for you to see properly what I am, who it really is that you belong to. Give me your arm."

I held out my hand to him, eyes downcast. "Look at me. Don't you _dare_ turn away." He lifted my wrist to his lips, eyes burning into mine, and slowly, so I would see what he was doing, sunk his teeth into the soft skin there. His eyelids fluttered, but he kept his gaze focused on me. He groaned as the blood welled up around his mouth, dripping onto his shirt.

And I felt it too. Wave after wave of need surged through me, the expression of his desire welling in my veins like a drug I had come to crave. My eyes tried to close with the intensity of it, but I kept them open, watching his neck muscles shift as he sucked.

When my wanting was almost too much to bear, he released me from his bite, closing the wound and cleaning away the excess blood with a broad lick. "That's what the collar means, love. You're mine, you see. To drink. To use."

He bent down and kissed me, and for the first time I tasted myself, coppery on his tongue. "Shall I use you _now_, love? Would you like to be _fucked_?" He whispered it, roughly, next to my ear.

I writhed beneath him shamelessly, pressing my bare skin against his clothes. "Please, sir."

"Fuck that," he snapped. "Say my name."

"_Edward_, yes, please" I breathed, the sensation rushing through my blood still feeding the ache in my core.

I reached for the hem of his shirt, but his clothes and my underwear were suddenly off, and his cold length pressed into the heat of my need. My body thrust upward to meet him, and my hands scratched down his back, urging him on.

"_Harder_," he hissed, and gasped in pleasure when I obeyed, my fingernails raking his perfect muscles.

It was hard and fast, the way we both knew I wanted it.

Too soon, he reached between us, shaking, and rubbed me furiously until the sweet tension in my core built to a crashing release. Sated as I was, I remembered to watch his face as he cried out before he came, beautiful and naked in my arms.

When our heartbeats slowed, he sat up, my legs still wrapped around him, and cleared a wisp of hair away from my face. He left his hand against the side of my neck, brushing my collar. "I don't know if you can understand how good it feels to see you like this." His voice had returned to the gentle velvet that marked the vampire's satisfaction and retreat.

"But I'm going to take this off now, so you can be yourself again. Okay?" I smiled and nodded. He deftly slipped the leather strap through its buckle and placed the collar carefully on the nightstand next to _Emma_.

"How do you feel?" His eyes scanned my face.

My smile broadened. "Grateful."

He raised his eyebrows. "_You're_ grateful? I think between Esme and now you, this could be the best day of my _life_. I want to do something for you, to thank you." He glanced around the room, his eyes landing on the pile of books by the bed. "Would you like me to read to you? Or I could—"

"Hold me." I knew what I wanted. "Just hold me and tell me about your day."

So Edward wrapped me tightly against him and told me about Esme.

* * *

**Carlisle's POV:**

I woke to the sound of a familiar voice humming a familiar song. It was _The Lark in the Clear Air_, a favourite of Esme's. It was played at our wedding.

The candles had gone out, and the moon was down. In the dark I listened to the tinkle of glass pieces being swept across the hardwood floor as Esme restored the dining room to its usual state. I shifted against the table and began to sit up.

"Good, you're awake," she said, carrying a dustpan toward the kitchen as I stood. "Are you hungry? I've been outside, in the woods behind the house. I've eaten, but I thought you might like a rabbit if you didn't want to go out yourself."

She came back into the dining room bearing a small, soft form that smelled of fear. Its neck was twisted sharply to the side, and blood matted its delicate fur.

She was about to hand it to me when she looked down at its glassy, open eye. "Oh, dear. I suppose I must have had this one, too . . ." She took the dead thing back into the kitchen. I didn't listen to hear what she did with it.

"Of course, I don't mind going out again. I seem to have so much energy, Carlisle, it's really quite remarkable. Would you like to come with?"

She smiled in polite invitation, and her eyes flashed red as flame in the quiet dark.

**One more thing – since there have been rumors of trouble with racy stories on , I would like to remind you, just in case, that I also post this story on twilighted. **

**Now, is anyone still out there? **


	13. Out of the Past

**A/N: A few of you asked that I put this on the Writer's Coffee Shop, so I have. Now you can read it there if you prefer (and if anything ever happens to the story on this site, it will still be available there as well as on Twilighted). **

**Thanks for all your encouraging reviews—hearing your reactions helps me write the next chapter. **

**Thanks to my beta Lola84. **

**Bella's POV:**

I didn't see much of Edward for the next few days. Classes were starting, and I realized I had been completely neglecting my friends since I found out about Edward – and that's something you can't afford to do when you have as few friends as I have. I missed him, but he seemed happy to spend the time reconnecting with Esme.

In a way, it felt good to miss him, because the aching desire for him that pulled at me was a constant reminder of my love for him, even as I shared a bottle of wine with Alice or lost myself in reading for Victorian Lit 235. The past two weeks with Edward had disturbed my understanding of reality, so it felt good, too, to restore some normalcy to my life—and to know that I, a vampire's girlfriend, could still go to Starbuck's and drink a latte like an ordinary person.

There was only one problem. . . . Something had come up that I thought I should probably talk about with Edward. It wasn't a big deal, really, but I didn't want to tell him over the phone or during a quick lunch between classes, so I let a few days pass. I wasn't keeping it from him on purpose—at least, I didn't think so—but the longer I left it, the more it began to feel like a secret.

But I couldn't tell him today. He was picking me up after an early afternoon class to bring me home for dinner—and to finally introduce me to Esme. I knew he was excited, and I didn't want his evening ruined if he took my news the wrong way.

It was just as well, because I was speechless when I answered his knock on the door. He was dressed uncharacteristically in a shirt and tie, and it gave him a new air of casual confidence. The tie certainly brought out his eyes; I'd never seen them look so bright.

"I'm underdressed," I said apologetically. I was, in a T-shirt and jean shorts, the usual Swan ensemble for a hot day. This would probably be the last day of genuine warmth before the seasons changed.

"You're beautiful." He beamed at me, and I realized that it wasn't the tie at all. It was just that happiness looked good on him.

* * *

As the soles of my shoes touched the hot pavement of Edward's driveway, I felt a flutter of nerves as I realized I was about to meet the single human being, maybe apart from Carlisle, whose opinion Edward most valued. It wasn't that I questioned his feelings for me, it was just that I really wanted to make a good impression. I glanced despairingly at my legs, still somehow blindingly pale at the end of the season, and headed for the door.

Carlisle met us on the way in. He seemed different, too but not in the way I had expected. He looked older and drawn, with dark circles under his eyes and a crease in his forehead that I hadn't noticed before. He barely glanced at me, but focused on Edward with wide, almost childlike eyes.

"Do you know where she is?" Carlisle asked, one hand tapping nervously against his thigh.

"Esme?" Edward asked. "Isn't she here?"

Carlisle shook his head almost imperceptibly, and Edward's face fell. "She went out for groceries hours ago."

Edward brightened again. "Then I'm sure she'll be back soon. Don't worry so much."

"She's not answering her cell. I'm going to see if I can track her down."

Edward shrugged. "We'll call you when she gets here."

Carlisle brushed past us, his shoulders hunched. He certainly didn't look like a man who had recently recovered the love of his life. Maybe it was more of an adjustment than he'd expected, having her with him again.

Carlisle had left the TV on, and the local news assaulted the quiet of the Cullens' immaculate living room. It was the usual sensational garbage—a mutilated body found, five missing people this week . . . I didn't want to hear about it, so I picked up the remote and restored the silence.

We settled down with some fresh lemonade under a tree in the backyard. I stretched out, savouring the prickle of the cool grass against my legs, a sensation of summer I probably wouldn't feel again for a while. While we waited for Esme to return, Edward told me stories about his childhood with her.

He talked about the first time she took him to the opera, just the two of them, a month after she and Carlisle had taken him in. It was Verdi's _Macbeth_, and he loved the elaborate costumes and gory special effects. Afterwards, he said, she praised him for sitting still through the whole show and took him for ice cream. That night, after more than a month of refusing to let anyone touch him, he reached for her hand.

He remembered, he said, as a younger child watching with fascination the light precision of her fingers on the bow of her violin, and in later years playing together while Carlisle worked at the dining room table. For the first few years, she read to him on lazy Saturday mornings—_Alice in Wonderland_, _Charlotte's Web_, _The Once and Future King_. . . . When, as always, she started to cry in the final chapters of the sad ones, Edward would take the book from her and read her the ending.

In elementary school, she threw him elaborate themed birthday parties (dinosaurs at seven, pirates at eight, and _Star Wars_ at ten), and in high school she kept up a never ending supply of snacks when he and his friends played video games in the basement. She taught him how to read music, how to multiply fractions, how to bake a pie.

And then one day, I knew, she left and didn't speak to him for years. How could she show him so much love and then abandon him completely?

I didn't ask, but listened as he continued his reminiscences. He looked so happy, his mussed hair glowing in a patch of light that filtered through the trees above us.

* * *

Later, I was lying halfway underneath the baby grand in the living room as Edward played requests for me. There was a book in my hand, but I wasn't reading it, instead watching Edward's foot on the pedal and letting soft music of Debussy carry me away.

"That was beautiful," I said, as the vibrations of the last notes lingered.

"Thank you." I could hear the shy smile in Edward's voice. He knew he was good, but he still liked hearing it. "Um, would you like to hear a piece I just finished? It's a lullaby."

"Hmm, sure."

There was a rustle of paper above me, and then a few slow, sweeping opening chords. The low notes wrapped around me, gentle and caressing, and the high ones shimmered lightly above me, but both swelled to a gradual crescendo that made me feel like flying, carried by cradling sound. I thought the lullaby might be Edward's best composition yet. It felt like an empty garden at twilight, or like a calm place in a broad river. It felt like love. . . .

"Edward!" A cheerful woman's voice called from the hallway, and Edward finished the phrase he was playing and let the sound fade.

I wriggled out from under the piano, slightly dazed, shaking off the spell of the music. I ran a hand through my hair in a futile attempt to look presentable.

When I looked up, Esme was already in the room. She left her large paper bag on the coffee table and smoothed out her already pristine white dress. She smiled with genuine love at her son, but as her eyes appraised me her pleasant expression took on a forced quality.

"You must be Bella." Her fluid voice was cheerful on the surface, but with a slicing, threatening undertone that politeness could not quite conceal. She extended a manicured hand gracefully but with obvious reluctance.

_Already, she doesn't like me?_ I shoved aside my hurt feelings and my surprise at her apparent hostility. I wanted to make sure she knew that, no matter what she thought or how intimidating she looked, I wasn't going to fade into the background and let her come between Edward and I. I took her hand and shook it, forcing my spine straight and meeting her eyes.

And as I met them, my chest constricted. Her irises were glaring, angry red—the kind of red that, from what Edward had told me, could only occur when a vampire was living almost exclusively on human blood.

"Is something wrong, dear?" Her precisely lipsticked mouth curled at the edge unkindly.

I won my internal battle and didn't drop my eyes. "Not at all. Can I offer you some help with dinner?"

"Oh no, you just make yourself comfortable. There's not that much to do; we're having steaks. I hope that's alright with you?"

Actually, I hadn't eaten red meat in years. And I was pretty sure that Edward would have mentioned it to his mother, our charming host. "That sounds lovely, thank you."

She beckoned Edward into the kitchen. "Do you think you might help with the salad, please?"

Edward glanced back at me, but followed her, leaving me alone and useless in the living room.

I picked up my Dickens from underneath the piano, but I couldn't get into it. Something was wrong here. The surface similarities were there, but this woman wasn't anything like the one that Edward had described. And then there were her eyes, so much redder and colder than Edward's or Carlisle's. What was she doing to keep them that way?

And why did she hate me so much?

I heard an oven door close in the kitchen, and Esme came out into the living room, wiping her hands on an apron as crisp and white as the dress beneath it. She arranged herself on a very straight chair.

It was time to chat, apparently. _Oh goody._

"Reading, I see?"

I nodded.

"Yes, Edward said you were one of those bookish types. Planning to go into literary criticism, is that what he said?"

"Yes, that's something I'm considering, although I haven't quite decided between—"

"Much easier than actually writing something yourself, I should think. Like Edward and his compositions, it's quite amazing how much time and energy he puts into them. Sometimes he's up all night. Not everyone has that kind of dedication, or the necessary talent, for that matter, to produce an artistic creation out of thin air." Part of me was stung, agreeing with what Esme was implying. Edward _was_ incredibly talented; what _did_ he see in me?

But, more than that, I was angry at her for judging my place in Edward's life so quickly—especially after she had abandoned him for so many years. "Yes, he is a wonderful composer. He got a standing ovation at the student concert in the summer." _And I saw it. Where were you? _

"Yes, he's so creative. I always knew, when he was a boy, that it would be music. But what do I know? I also imagined when he finally met a girl, that it would be another artist."

"I do write poetry, actually." My professors last year had been encouraging me to try to get published. _I could be the next Emily Dickinson, for all you know. _

She smiled at me and said lightly, "Doesn't every college girl?"

Just then, Edward came in. "What do you want done with the steaks?"

"Oh, I'll deal with those, dear. Why don't you and Bella set the table?"

_Thank God._

"I'm glad you two are getting along," Edward said as he handed me the napkins.

_Are you serious?_ I scanned his face and found no hint of sarcasm. "Edward, does she seem to you to be . . . the same as she was before?"

He rustled through the cutlery drawer. "What do you mean?"

How should I put this? "Well, did you notice her eyes? They're really red, like maybe . . ."

He stiffened and shut the drawer quite forcefully. "You have no idea how hard it is, being new. She needs time to learn control. Just give her a chance, will you?" he snapped.

Carlisle came in with a bottle of wine in hand and met my eyes sympathetically. He gestured to us to sit at the table, and we complied. "Red or white, Bella?"

"Red, thanks," I accepted gratefully. He poured me a very generous glass, and gave himself the same.

Esme came in bearing a bowl of salad and a plate of very large steaks, gracefully placing them in the middle of the table before she sat down and unfolded her napkin. "Help yourselves," she said, and we did, making the usual polite comments about how delicious it all looked—although, honestly, food did not often look less appetizing than the extremely rare chunk of meat that I reluctantly forked onto my plate.

She was saying how happy she was to have the family together for dinner when Carlisle cut in. "Where were you this afternoon?"

"Excuse me?" She looked at him quizzically, with a false innocence that even I almost believed.

"You know perfectly well what I'm asking you, Esme. What were you doing this afternoon?"

"Didn't I tell you? I went to get steaks." She sipped her Shiraz calmly, holding the glass by the stem.

"For _five hours_?" Carlisle sawed at his bleeding steak ferociously.

"Carlisle, we have company." The threatening undercurrent in her voice boiled near the surface. "You don't want to involve Bella in this conversation, do you?"

"Of course not." He put his cutlery down with an ungainly clatter and gulped at his wine. A trickle of the dark fluid fell from the corner of his mouth, and he wiped it away quickly, but I couldn't help imagining it was blood. "So, Bella, how are your classes?"

"Good so far. I'm really looking forward to Victorian Lit, and Advanced Poetry is my first upper-level course, so that's going to be challenging."

"I don't know how students manage these days, with all the reading you have to do. Edward reads so fast, we never had to think about it with him." Esme lifted her wine to drink. The liquid in the glass refracted the light from the kitchen so it looked almost as red as her lipstick, which matched her unnatural eyes.

"Bella's a great student," Edward said proudly. "And she reads all the time." I looked down at my steak, so little cooked it was barely sanitary. The dark pink juices were seeping into my lettuce, and I recalled very clearly why I had decided to cut red meat out of my diet. I clenched my teeth and sliced into my dinner, which oozed red like a wound.

"Yes, it sounds like that's practically all she does." Esme cleared her throat. "Bella, did Edward tell you, he and I took the most marvellous trip on Wednesday afternoon? We ran up to the provincial park near Vancouver."

_Ran_ to _Vancouver_? I glanced at Edward. Was this something he did _often_? "Um, that sounds very nice."

"Yes, we went hunting. It's quite an incredible feeling, actually, fighting a wild animal with nothing but your own strength and speed; like becoming a part of nature."

"I can imagine." The idea of Edward drinking the blood of some wild animal the same way he drank mine was unsettling; it seemed unhygienic, for one thing, and, more importantly, it made me feel—well, like _meat_.

"Oh, I'm not sure that you _can_ imagine it, dear. Edward took down a bear—they're stronger than we are, of course, but we're so much faster that it's perfectly safe. He said the blood tasted particularly interesting. Spicy, is that how you described it, Edward?"

Edward looked toward me uncomfortably. "Something like that. But the forest was really beautiful, Bella, I wish you could have seen it. We saw an eagle's nest . . ." he continued on, steering the conversation in another direction.

I tried to take a steadying drink of wine, but its deep colour and salty smell reminded me of something else . . . And Edward was dragging a bite of steak around his plate to soak up extra juices. I knew he liked his steak as rare as possible because it kept some of the flavour of blood. I tried to force down another bite, but all I could see when I looked at my steak was a piece of muscle, bleeding, and my stomach heaved.

Esme's fluttering laugh sounded at something witty Edward must have said. I felt suddenly that she was being inhuman, serving this blood-red meal in a dining room and acting the part of a civilized host, when I knew from the tint of her eyes that all she wanted was the real thing, hot from the source. She bit through a lettuce leaf and my thoughts produced the image of those perfect white teeth tearing into a human throat.

"Are you okay, Bella?" Edward's concerned, rust-coloured eyes pulled me out of my mind's eye, but the nausea remained.

"Yeah, I think I'll just excuse myself for a minute if you don't mind." I tried to smile, hoping I didn't look as green as I felt.

"Sure." He brushed my hand with his as I passed him.

Leaving the bathroom door open for air, I splashed some water on my face then spread my palms against the cool tile of the counter around the sink, waiting for my stomach to calm. When I turned off the tap, the conversation in the dining room became audible, their voices carrying down the hall.

It was Edward. ". . . thought you would make an effort to include her. She's a normal girl and she doesn't want to hear about fighting wild animals and the taste of _bear_ blood—"

"Is that how she makes you feel, like some kind of aberration? You're a perfectly decent human being, Edward, and if you have to conceal parts of yourself to make her see that, then all I'm saying is that you should think twice about whether this is really the kind of relationship you want."

"You've just met her and you think I should _break up with her_?"

"You see how she's acting. Do you honestly think she can handle what we are, that you can be happy with her?" Was that why I wasn't good enough for Esme? Because I wasn't a vampire?

My stomach tightened all over again as seconds stretched past in silence. "We love each other," he said very quietly, but he'd had to think about it for a long time. "We'll figure it out." He spoke louder this time, but it couldn't cover that moment of hesitation that revealed his uncertainty. He doubted me.

I still felt like throwing up, and now I felt like crying, too. How could he be unsure about us, when I had been trying so hard? What if he was right?

"She's barely known about you for two weeks," Carlisle said consolingly. "I think you two have come a long way already." _You're a good man, Carlisle_, I thought. At least one member of the family was on my side.

"I was only suggesting—" Esme began.

"Sorry about that," I interrupted loudly as I made my way down the hall. I really didn't want to hear any more.

In fact, what I wanted was for this night to be over. I made an excuse—that it had been a long week at school and that I felt a little unwell, which was true—and didn't stay for dessert. I insisted on taking the bus home so that Edward wouldn't have to leave. Maybe also because I didn't want to be alone with him until I'd had time to think about what I had heard.

* * *

A couple of hours later that night, when Edward came to my dorm to see how I was feeling, he found me cuddled up on the living room couch in my pyjamas, with an empty box of soda crackers on the coffee table and _High Fidelity_ on the TV. And with a muscular, dark-skinned arm wrapped warmly around my shoulders.

"Who is this, Isabella?" Edward hissed, in a tone that made it clear that not telling him my little piece of news earlier had definitely been the wrong call.

No kidding. I swallowed, remembering the dream, and the belt, and the insult. _Slut_. And all I'd done that time was say his name.

"Edward, this is Jacob."

**Well, what do you think of that? **

**We're about four or five chapters away from the end, so if you have any thoughts about how things should turn out, I'd love to hear them, too. **


	14. Jacob

**A/N: Thanks for your patience! Here, at last, is another chapter. Many thanks to my beta Lola84 for her help as usual.**

**In other news, tell all your Spanish-speaking friends that they can now read **_**The Monster and I—**_**Lady Rebel Girl is publishing a translation on fanfiction. **

**This chapter is dedicated to karen4honor because I have done exactly what she asked me not to do. (Sorry Karen.)**

**I still don't own Smeyer's characters.**

**Edward's POV:**

"Edward, this is Jacob."

To them it must have happened very fast, but for a vampire with his senses enhanced by rage, everything moves very, very slowly. So there was plenty of time for me to take it in: Jacob fucking _smiling_ at me with his arm draped around _my_ _Isabella_ as though having his hands all over her was the most casual thing in the whole fucking world.

And there was enough time to imagine how he had been touching her before I showed up, pawing at her body like an object for his use, defiling all the places that belonged only to _me_.

_Bella wouldn't let him do that_, some small part of me reminded. _Besides, _you're_ the one that uses her. _

I silenced the inner reprimand, planning what I would do to Jacob for this. I could almost taste his delicious screams and his sweet death. The only decision left to make was to find the most painful way . . .

"Get your hands off her," said an animal growl that seemed to come from very far away. I wondered briefly who had given him the warning before I realized the voice had been my own.

Jacob slid away from Bella, his solid body brushing excruciatingly against her small curves. He raised his open palms in surrender. "Relax, man. No one's trying anything."

_Fucking liar_. I would kill him. I would crush the hands that had touched what was mine; I would break every bone in the arm that had claimed her. And if he'd even thought about doing more . . . I'd tear off his cock and make him choke on it.

"Edward, are you okay?" Bella, wide-eyed, was playing innocent. I would make her watch, so she would see what it did to me. She would be sorry; she would learn who she belonged to.

"Jacob, get the fuck out! You have to get out or I'm going to kill you!" My voice again, but it sounded desperate, pitched high with strain. It was strange—I didn't feel desperate. I knew I could take him down when I wanted to. Jacob looked strong for a human boy, but he would be helpless against me. I _liked_ this anger; it multiplied my strength, and it made me feel righteous.

"Jesus Christ, what is your problem, man?" Jacob stood up, positioning his bulk between me and my Bella. I felt another surge of anger, and of power. "Bells, is this guy hurting you? Because you don't have to put up with this kind of shit. You just say the word, and I'll take care of it."

"No, you can't! I mean, it's not . . . Jake, please, just go. I'll explain everything later. Please!" She was pushing him toward the door.

"I'm not leaving you here, Bells. He's acting fucking insane!"

She had him at the door. If he left, I would have to track him. If I had to wait too long, I could lose the scent. It would be better to do it now. I was about to lunge for him when I thought of Bella, and how she would weep over his body with remorse, and then with anger. _She would never forgive you_, the small part of me thought. _She'd always be afraid of you. Look at her now; she's terrified_.

"Please, Jake. Just trust me. I'm safe here, but you're not. Go!"

He looked back at me, confused, but allowed her to shove him out the door and slam it shut. I allowed it too. I'd have done just about anything for the satisfaction of tearing him apart—but I wasn't willing to hurt Bella.

"Edward?" she said tentatively, her back pressed against the door.

If I moved at all, I might break through that door and chase after Jacob. That could not happen, so I simply met her eyes and stared as I tried to restrain the monster and struggled to mask my twisted expression.

She lowered her gaze, a seductively submissive gesture that I was fully able to appreciate in my current mood. "Look, I'm sorry. Jacob just moved from Forks to start school here, and he's my best friend from high school, so we've been hanging out, and I'm sorry I didn't tell you—"

_That's enough. _"You've been _fucking around_ with your high school sweetheart and you're _sorry you didn't tell me_?"

The superficial submissiveness vanished, and she crossed her arms defiantly. "What? No! Is that what you think? Shit, Edward, you always jump to the worst possible conclusion when it comes to me!"

"What else am I supposed to think? You ditch dinner with my family to spoon on the couch with this guy who I know you've fucked before, who you're still fucking in your _dreams_, who you're seeing behind my back! I'm not an idiot, Bella. Just admit it so we can move on."

"It will never be enough for you, will it?" Bella dropped her arms to her sides. She looked tired. "You don't have any faith in me. Okay, I should have told you I was still in touch with Jacob, but you came in here and threatened to kill my best friend and then accused me of cheating on you, and now somehow you're the one who's pissed off? Maybe you're right, Edward, maybe I can't handle all of this crap. Maybe I'm sick of being afraid of what's going to set you off, of having to deal with your emotional fallout every time I do or think or say something that the vampire in you has a problem with. Maybe I didn't tell you about Jake because I knew it would be like this."

But his smell was all over her. "You're saying you didn't do anything with Jacob?"

"Fucking hell, Edward, I already told you I didn't. I haven't seen him that way for a long time. But even if I had, the way you just acted is not how a normal person reacts to this kind of situation. How am I going to explain to him why you went all homicidal?"

_That's what she cares about? What _Jacob_ is going to think?_ _The bitch doesn't appreciate what she has._ "If you want normal, maybe you _should_ be with Jacob. Get yourself some pretty pushover boy who's nice and comfortable, who never pushes you, who doesn't care what you do with other guys. Would that _satisfy_ you, Isabella?" I met her eyes with a look of challenge.

"Maybe it would." She glared back at me, disregarding the tears that were forming in her eyes. My cock twitched in approval when I smelled the salty fluid. "Maybe I just want someone who wants _me_, not someone who only wants to fuck with my head. I heard you talking to Esme. I know you don't think I'm good enough for you."

_Good enough for me?_ "But Isabella, you're delectable."

She winced. "I'm not _food_, Edward."

"That's not all I meant," I said. My Isabella was smart . . . she was adventurous . . . we could talk for hours about anything and everything. And she loved my bite, and the pleasure and pain I gave her—it was delicious, the way we fit together. "You were made to be mine."

"I'm not a _possession_, either. Why can't you take me seriously?"

"I do." _I love you. I know you feel it, the intensity of it. _

"No, you—you don't even realize." Her hand was on the doorknob. "I'm going to go find Jacob, in case he's wondering if I'm still alive."

She was _still_ fixated on Jacob? "Would you just forgetabout that fucking kid already?"

She just shook her head at me and slammed the door behind her.

It was only when she was gone that the monster finally calmed itself and my thoughts were my own again. I sunk to the floor, exhausted as the adrenaline relinquished its hold on my body.

_Holy shit_, I thought. I had never wanted to kill someone before, just for the pleasure of it, but still the thought of Jacob's dying breath was purely beautiful to me. It made me nauseous, even as I relished it. Now I understood what Bella had been trying to say; she deserved someone who wasn't a natural killer.

No, that wasn't it. I could, of course, recall the conversation perfectly, and I replayed her exact words over in my head. _I just want someone who wants _me_. I know you don't think I'm good enough for you. Why can't you take me seriously?_

She thought that I didn't love her the way she was; that even though we had started to figure out how sex could work between us, I couldn't be happy with her until I'd frightened her into some kind of passive toy for a vampire.

But I knew that she had misunderstood—it was the challenge of her personality meeting mine that I relished, and the way that she managed to belong to me so completely and yet remain entirely her own.

I hated that I had made her too afraid to tell me she and Jacob were still friends. It was time to find her and tell her so. If I could explain, it would erase the look of defeat I'd seen in her eyes when she walked away from me.

* * *

**Bella's POV:**

I didn't even look for Jacob. I just started walking without a destination in mind, moving faster and faster through the cooling dark as though, if I could go far enough, I might escape from my own feelings.

_He doesn't love me. How could I not have seen it? I'm just a thing—a pet—a walking beverage to him. He doesn't see me, how hard I have to work to be what he needs and hold on to my whole self at the same time. He doesn't care about me at all, he only gets annoyed when I don't fit perfectly into his fucking vampire world. _

It seemed more and more true as I thought it over. I remembered how violently he had reacted when he realized I'd had sex before; how he had called me a slut just because I said Jacob's name; how furious he had been when I didn't confess to having the desires he wanted me to have. I was supposed to be some kind of spineless virgin who didn't care about anyone but him, who didn't blink an eye if he ran off to Canada to fight a bear, and whose deepest sexual need was exactly whatever he felt like doing at the time. Clearly I didn't fit the mold.

_He doesn't love me. It's the best explanation for the way he acts_. I thought it again and again as I wandered the campus aimlessly, watching my shadow grow and shrink as I passed through the glowing patches cast by streetlights.

This wasn't just about the sex. I could deal with his dominating sexuality—in fact, I could admit now that I was growing to love it—when I thought it was an expression of his love for me. But if he acted so possessive because, to him, I really _was_ just a possession, then all the ways he'd toyed with me suddenly became more real, and infinitely more cruel.

I felt sick, like I had let myself be used, and stupid for having trusted him so completely. I should never have let myself believe . . .

Swiftly, a shadow not my own swept across the pool of yellow light beneath me. I wiped the tears from my eyes so I could see more clearly. I quickened my pace and glanced around; all the windows were dark in the blank, grey buildings that lined the empty street.

_The streetlight must have flickered, that's all_, I told myself, but I didn't slow down. _Where am I?_ I had wandered to the edge of the campus. I tried to convince myself that it was probably nothing . . . because nobody came to these buildings at night. _How many blocks home?_ I counted nine.

I heard a rustling. It was probably the wind in the trees, disturbing the warm night air as fat, heavy drops of rain began to fall, spotting the sidewalk. I shivered as the chill water clung to my bare arms.

A flash of pale skin slipped by at the corner of my vision—pale skin and maybe a yellow dress.

_There's nobody there. You're being ridiculous_, I chided myself as I mentally traced the route home again. _Eight blocks now_. There would be plenty of time to laugh at myself for getting scared at nothing when I was warm in my living room.

A garbage can fell somewhere, startlingly loud in the still night. I stopped in the middle of the street, my heart racing, with my head turned over my shoulder toward the source of the sound.

I heard metal scraping concrete, and then a small animal yowl. _Just a cat, you idiot_. I relaxed a little, chuckling at my own foolishness.

But then I heard it. Someone else was laughing, too. The high tones echoed against the dark cement buildings. It was clear as a bell—and colder than the trickle of rain that ran down my spine.

I recognized that laugh, and I recalled with nausea the sharp glint of Esme's teeth and the movements of her white throat as she sipped her wine. I could feel her near me, still in red lipstick and shining pearls.

_Run. No, don't run. She can catch you if she wants to. Maybe if she thinks you don't know she's there . . . _There were seven blocks to go.

I tried to look confident, unaware of the danger I was in, but I knew that Esme's vampire eyes could see the shake in my hands and the flutter in my chest. The rainwater mixed with my cold sweat. _Six more blocks._

At the corner, I scanned the cross street desperately, hoping for the protection of a crowd of late-night partiers. I saw no one. It was probably four a.m.

As I was about to step onto the crosswalk I stiffened, feeling a cold breath on the side of my neck. It was not the wind. It had fingernails, and it lightly caressed my cheek. _"Run away, little rabbit,"_ it whispered.

I did. Faster than I had ever run before, I sped down the pavement, the thundering of my feet and the heavy gasping of my breath as loud as the blood rushing in my ears. _Five blocks to go. Four blocks. Three blocks. _

Abruptly I stopped when I caught the glint of her blood red eyes directly ahead of me, the length of one building away. She was still as a photograph, although the growing weather whipped her hair around her motionless form. The skirt of her yellow dress was shredded, and the wind tossed its bloodstained strips against her legs.

Her eyes met mine, unblinking, and I could not look away from their emptiness. Her face was fixed in a sneer of loathing that made me crumble inside. Dried blood encrusted her chin.

At last she blinked and smiled broadly, an expression without warmth that displayed her bloodstained teeth. She winked at me, and then was gone.

Vanished. _Run away, _she had said. This was some kind of twisted game to her.

There was nothing to do except play it. I ran another block. If I could get home and call Edward, he would know what to do—if he believed me, and if he cared.

_One more block_. I could take the truck instead. _And go where? It wouldn't stop her. She's too fast. _

There, finally, I saw my dorm building. Golden light poured out of the glass door, calming me slightly as I fumbled, turning the key in the lock.

The hall was oppressively warm in contrast with the outside, slowing me down as I climbed the stairs.

My own door was unlocked, and as I dropped my purse at the door I saw Jacob, shirtless, relaxing on my couch. He must have come back to make sure I was okay; ever since we were kids, Jacob had always tried to take care of me.

"Jacob, fuck! Something's happening, I don't know how to explain—"

The words stopped coming when I realized that I couldn't tell Jacob anything.

His eyes were open and glassy. He was propped up on the cushions, with the back of his head pressing against the hard back of the couch, his neck tilted to almost completely obscure the gaping bite torn into his throat. Numbly I noticed that there was no blood anywhere on him, except for a few drips on his shoulder beneath the wound.

"I've tidied up a little, dear." Esme emerged from my bedroom wearing a white linen dress that belonged to me, her immaculate appearance restored. "There was blood absolutely _everywhere_; you can't imagine. And I hope you don't mind that I've borrowed a wine glass." She took a sip from it. "Your friend had so much in him, it seemed like a waste to drink it all at once."

**Any thoughts?**


	15. Only Human

**A/N: Thank you for your patience! Finished at last. **

**Bella's POV:**

"Why don't you sit down, dear?" Esme gestured toward the couch, her blood stained lips curving in the cruel parody of a smile. "I know this visit is unexpected, but you and my son have become so close, I simply couldn't wait any longer to spend some time together, just us girls."

_I'll just do what she says. Stall her until . . . _

Until what? Until _Edward_ got here? I didn't even know what he would do if he found me. Maybe I should just refuse to cooperate and force her to get it over with.

She seemed to sense my hesitation and smiled for real this time, a look of amusement and anticipation that made me want to throw myself to the ground and beg her to release me—and I think I would have, except for the certainty that nothing I could say would prevent her from doing . . . whatever she was planning to do.

I couldn't face it yet. My heart beating so fast I could hardly control my movements, I obeyed and sat down next to Jacob.

Not next to Jacob. Next to Jacob's body. My weight jostled the cushions and his heavy limbs slid out of position so that he fell splayed at an unnatural angle, the back of one hand resting on the carpet. I couldn't think about it. It couldn't be real.

"Hmm." Esme surveyed his body and took a sip of his blood, holding her wine glass by the stem. "Can't be bothered with that mess _now_, I suppose." She turned her attention to me and I stiffened. "Thirsty?" she asked, raising a perfectly plucked eyebrow.

I fought not to throw up. "N-no thank you," I said, irrationally angry at the shake in my voice. I hated feeling so helpless before this bitch, and I hated her enjoyment of my panic even more.

"That's the root of our little problem, isn't it? Blood, I mean. Edward likes it; you don't. And no matter how you try to complicate matters with atrociously boring window dressings—_conversation_, long walks in the park, long hours gazing into each other's eyes—the situation is really quite black and white. There is a clear line between those who know how to enjoy the taste of others' pain, and those who are too afraid to take their pleasure from the world. . . ." She continued to talk in her false friendly voice as she moved toward my CD cabinet and began deftly flicking through my collection. She was on the other side of the room—should I run for the door?

"I should know, dear; I've crossed that line, and you can only pass in one direction. I was an insufferable innocent for years. I did it all—soup kitchens, children's charities, board games at the kitchen table, doing crosswords between the crisp white sheets next to the same damn man every night of my life. And the worst part is, I thought I was _happy_." She shuddered. "But it took only one selfish act, and I was over the line. Because you can never go back once you see the lie—the thin veneer that separates your civilized self from the creature you were born to be: the illusion that you are good, that the laws of right and wrong mean something to you. I learned that I was evil, and then my pleasure was the only law . . ." Her lecture trailed off. She was rifling through my CDs inhumanly quickly now, scanning the same titles over and over. "I can't find anything I want to listen to!" she whined with childlike fury, crushing the albums she had in her hands.

She was distracted; it was now or never. I went for the door as fast as I could, but as my hand touched the handle, there she was in front of me. Her fingernails dug into my arm, breaking the skin. "I'm not finished talking," she warned quietly, a cold threat slithering in the depths of her voice. She raised my arm to her face, holding eye contact as she swept her tongue wetly across the small, half-moon cuts. Her red irises darkened almost imperceptibly. "Blood was the line that I crossed, and make no mistake, Edward has crossed it, too. I tasted my first blood and a hunger woke inside me, to kill and to drink, again and again. There were rules I had obeyed since the day I was born, and I broke them, and I found they were nothing." She had chosen not to heal me; the blood welled up again on my arm, and she slurped it as it dripped down my skin.

"God was not angry with me, because there was no God." She lined her nails up with the cuts and dug into them again, this time deep enough to make me cry out. She glanced toward the ceiling as if expecting Him to smite her, then shrugged and smiled at me. "See? Nothing."

She threw me back roughly into my place on the couch. "And Edward is the same, only you hold him in the torturous gap between the sides with your little whore manipulations, where wallows in desire and hates himself for every morsel of pleasure he takes. You infect him with your disgusting weakness." She surveyed me, her face twisted with utter loathing. "I will not tolerate you tearing apart this family. We will wait her until he comes for you, and then either he will turn you into one of us, or he will help me kill you. Do you understand?"

I nodded, nausea overtaking me again. _Edward would never do that. Edward will stop this. Won't he? _I begged God, if He was there, not to let me throw up—I was terrified of Esme's reaction.

She sat down, insinuating herself into the space between me and Jacob's corpse. "I fear I was a bit rash in drinking your boy toy here—it seems I haven't the appetite to enjoy you properly in your last human hour. But there are, of course, other appetites . . ." her voice trailed off suggestively, and I pressed my thighs together involuntarily.

"Don't flatter yourself," she said flatly. "I have no such interest in you. But I think I do know of something I could teach you about . . ."

Gently, she picked up my hand and held it in hers, lightly massaging each joint in my fingers. Then, without warning, she took the end of my pinky between her finger and thumb—and crushed it. I was quiet long enough to hear the crunch of the shattering bone; my scream came a half moment later when I felt the clenching, terrible agony searing through my hand.

"Mmmmm." Esme soaked up the desperate sound of my sobs. "Better than Beethoven." She smiled genuinely, then brushed her fingertips across my cheek and sucked the tears from them. "I'm beginning to understand what Edward sees in you."

She shifted her grip to the next joint in my pinky. "Ready for another lesson?"

* * *

**Edward's POV:**

When I left Bella's building there were raindrops spotting the sidewalk, and the moisture in the air intensified the smells of the night: dirt, rubber, motor oil, the distant ocean—and sweet vanilla traces of Bella's presence. I followed the scent, anticipating the conversation that would convince her that everything was all right between us.

I had to restrain myself to a frustrating human pace so I wouldn't lose the trail, especially as the increasing rain began to wash it away. She'd taken a long, meandering route around the outside edge of the campus, and as I walked I suppressed a wave of protective annoyance that she would endanger herself walking at night alone in these deserted places.

_If she wasn't a little reckless, she wouldn't be with you, would she?_ I smiled, thinking of how quickly she'd embraced my vampire nature. When most girls would have been overwhelmed or terrified, she had been curious . . . and then she'd given me that sexy smile, a look I'd never thought I'd get from anyone who really understood what I was. My brave Bella.

And then I smelled her fear, and my smile vanished. I froze, scouring the wet air for any further clues. There was no suggestion of physical pain, and I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding. _Maybe something startled her_, I thought, but I knew the scent was too strong for it to be only that. I kept walking, fighting the instinct to run—now, it was even more important than ever that I not lose her trail.

And then the smell of the blood hit me like a wall—not Bella's, but familiar; I couldn't place it. And something else, a familiar perfume . . . the rain was falling heavily now, and I couldn't tell. I didn't stop long enough to figure it out—if I didn't find her soon, I would lose the path completely.

I didn't lose it. Like a hunter, I blocked out every other smell and sound to focus on the traces she had left behind. I blocked out the feeling of helpless terror that I might already be too late, the tension in my muscles that demanded to defend her _now_, the silent prayer that was a single, hopeful word repeated in my mind . . .

_Bella, Bella, Bella, Bella . . . _

When I saw the light of her building, I _knew_ that the cause of her fear had followed her here. That meant it was probably with her now. My stomach sank as I imagined what it could be—a stalker, a murderer, a monster like me—and I broke the lock on the front door with my hands. I was at her dorm in the space of a breath, and in her living room a second later.

The room came to my senses in fragments; it took time to piece them together. Bella was alive—thank God—but barely conscious; her skin was grey, her eyelids swollen, tears drying into tiny salt crystals on her face. I smelled the metallic tang of adrenaline in her blood—there were drops of it on the carpet. There was other blood, too, the familiar blood from before; it was Jacob's, I realized when I saw his empty body. I thought for a second that I must have killed him and somehow forgotten, but then I smelled my mother's honeysuckle perfume and her new vampire scent beneath.

She was standing behind me, between me and the open doorway, when I turned around, and she was toying with the glass of blood in her hand in a way that made me thirsty. She was wearing Bella's dress, and that artificial smile that I had never seen her use when I was a kid. "Esme, what—"

"This is what you wanted, isn't it? Your only competition reduced to a bloodless corpse? Granted, you won't be able to hear him scream now, but I can promise you that he did. I _try_ to be a good mother."

"_You_ did this?"

"Of course, dear. I came here to talk to you and Bella, but then I overheard your conversation. I knew what you wanted done, and that you were too afraid to do it yourself, so I took care of it for you. Here, have a taste." She held out the glass, her eyes meeting mine with almost fanatical intensity. "It will make you strong."

Part of me yearned toward the glass—Jacob's blood, the remains of his death—and part of me recoiled in horror. I stood still, and I answered without conviction, "No."

Her face hardened. "Why not?"

"It isn't right."

"Isn't it?" She came closer, wrapped her arm around me, and lifted the glass so the blood was under my nose, the liquid sloshing back and forth beneath its congealed surface. "Doesn't it _feel_ right? Don't you think it would _taste_ right?" _Yes, so delicious_, said the monster. _He's already dead; you've done nothing wrong. Now, before the blood gets any older._ "You're not a little boy anymore. Take what you want."

_Yes, _the monster urged. _Drink it. Glory in his defeat. He had his hands all over your girl._

My girl. I pushed Esme away, hard enough to spill half the glass before she steadied it. "What have you done to Bella?"

"We were just playing a little game, sweetie." She flashed that fake smile again. "Bella's here to help you make a choice."

"A choice?" I glanced toward Bella and she shrank from my gaze.

"She's weak, and it makes you weak. Her feelings for this boy Jacob kept you from killing him when I know you wanted to. You're afraid she'll judge you for taking what you want, so you deny yourself. You should be free to kill, to drink, to experience every pleasure that moves you, but instead you pretend you're the ordinary human you never will be. You make yourself slow to match her sickly body, and you restrain every impulse to match her useless morals when she is _nothing_ compared to you."

I shrank beneath her words, unbelieving. How could she not love my Bella? My eyes focused on the bloodstain, watching the crimson blossom in each carpet fibre.

"Look at you, staring at the floor," she snapped. "This is exactly what I mean. Stop cowering and look me in the eye."

I met her red gaze. "You don't know what you're talking about. If you got to know her better—"

She ignored me. "But she doesn't have to be what she is. You could make her beautiful and strong enough for you. You could have everything you wanted _together_. All you have to do is change her, and she could be what you need."

"She already _is_ what I need! And I would never—"

"Make her a vampire against her will?" Esme's voice was heavy with cynicism. "Of course not. That would be a cruel thing to do to someone. It will have to be the other option, then. Bella, why don't you tell Edward what my expectations are?"

Bella's voice was raspy; I couldn't tell if it was from crying or screaming. "She wants you to kill me."

_Kill her?_ I stared at my mother in open shock.

"Don't pretend you haven't thought about it; I know what's in a vampire's heart." She arched an eyebrow suggestively.

A small change in Bella's breathing told me that she believed those words. A vision of myself came into my mind: bent over her like a feeding animal, drinking her dry as her body spasmed, dying beneath me. She thought I would do that? That I would _fantasize_ about it? I found myself backing toward the door, my hands raking roughly in my hair. "No, I love her—it's not like that, I—"

"Do you see how surprised she is? She has no idea what you really are, you've spent so much of yourself in hiding it. I know you're a killer, and I love you for it, but she never can, and it will ruin you unless you _do _something about it. Change her so she can understand you, or drink her dry so she'll be yours forever and you'll never have to think of her again. It's your decision which, dear, but I will _not_ stand by and watch you suffer like this when I know you could be free of it all."

_She's right. Bella will never love you, never be yours, especially not after tonight. _But she would be alive, and maybe that fact would be enough. "_No_. I won't do it. I would _never_."

"I'm disappointed in you, dear." Esme absently brushed off the front of her dress. "Oh, well. If you're not strong enough, then _I'll_ do it."

"No!" Before I realized what I was doing, I was clutching her by the shoulders, slamming her body against the doorframe. Her head smashed a dent in the plaster, but she wasn't fighting back; she was laughing with abandon, the room ringing with half-hysterical sound.

"Oh, Edward, you are just _too_ funny! You won't kill your slut girlfriend, but you'll kill your own _mother_, is that it?"

"No, I—"

"Do it." Her eyes glinted with challenge. Was this some kind of _game_ to her? "I dare you. I'm probably stronger than you, but I'll hold perfectly still. I think you can't. You're a coward."

I just stood there, paralyzed by the horror of the situation.

"I'll kill her," she said with a whisper of excitement in her voice. "If I leave this room tonight, I will stalk her night and day until I can catch her alone, and then I will drink her like a cup of tea and crush her neck like china."

A far away part of me wondered why she would say that, wondered if she was so desperate to die, but the monster was in control and I was going to protect my Bella. I bent and positioned my teeth to tear her throat open. She was laughing again; I noticed that, distantly, and wanted her to be still. But then I breathed in—honeysuckle and apple blossom, the scent she'd worn for my entire life—and I was seven years old again, a new orphan waiting in a small room for a blond, smiling heroine to take him by the hand and lead him to a life without violence.

She was right; I couldn't do it. Gently, I took my teeth from her skin and backed away from her, searching in her eyes for some trace of the woman that I'd known. "Mom . . ."

She had stopped laughing now; her face was ugly with disgust. "I knew you were weak. You're no vampire—you're barely a man. You're certainly not my son."

"And you're not my—"

It came out of nowhere. It was the head of an axe, slicing through the air, making an arc close to my face and burying itself in Esme's neck with a wet crunch. She smiled as if to laugh, and then the life passed out of her features.

It was a long, hollow moment before my eyes traced the grain of the wooden handle down to Carlisle's hands. He released them slowly from the weapon, as though with great effort, and lifted them toward his face to examine the acid blood that was on them. He looked at me for a moment, then turned to face his wife. He pulled the axe from her throat as gently as he could, and wiped his fingers on his clothes before he softly closed her eyes and kissed her on the forehead.

He cleared his throat and went to Bella. "I'm sorry. I came as soon as I realized where she had gone. I knew she was . . . killing . . ." He cleared his throat again. "I should never have let it go on so long. The woman I loved would never have wanted to live like this."

He shook his head as if to clear his vision. "Are you hurt?"

She grimaced and held out her crumpled, broken hand. The three smallest fingers hung useless and contorted. "A game," was all she said.

I hadn't noticed it, and now I was standing here like an idiot when there was finally something I could fix. "Let me help you—if I give you just a small bite—"

I sat next to her and reached for her hand, gently I thought, but she recoiled and turned to Carlisle with terrified, pleading eyes. "No, please, I want you to do it."

And that's when I realized what it meant, that I hadn't been the one to save her. I had hesitated, and now she would never see how much I loved her, that I would choose her life over the desires of the monster, over even my mother's life, over my own . . . I hadn't been strong enough, and she would never trust me again.

Carlisle healed her hand and helped her get ready for bed while I went out into the forest. The first light was just coming into the sky as I finished burying the bodies.

**A/N: One last chapter to go.**


	16. You Can't Always Get What You Want

**A/N: Thanks for the steady trickle of comments that finally motivated me to finish this story. This is the last of it.**

**Thanks to my beta Lola84, to Edward'sChipper for recommending the story on Darkest Temptations, and to Ecullenitis for recommending the story on Darkward's Dungeon.**

**And thanks for reading.**

**Edward's POV:**

_I'm not even in my own recurring dream. _

_Bella is sitting on the couch in black lingerie, cocooned in my white feather duvet. I can't see the television, but I know that she is watching _Pride and Prejudice_. Her eyes fixed on the screen, she takes a handful of popcorn from a bowl next to her. She does not seem to notice that Jacob's bloodless corpse is holding the bowl. He is decomposing next to her under the blanket, and his arm is limp around her shoulders. _

_Bella becomes agitated and the screen appears in my mind's eye. It's near the end of the story, and Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are walking together in hills saturated with sunshine. Elizabeth says her line: "You are too generous to trifle with me. If your feelings are still what they were last April, tell me so at once . . ."_

_Mr. Darcy stops walking, and the soundtrack cuts out in the middle of a swell of strings. I no longer hear the wind rustling the grass or the song of the birds. Mr. Darcy only stands there, motionless, staring without focus or emotion. _

_Elizabeth repeats his cue. ". . . one word from you will silence me on this subject forever." _

_But Mr. Darcy does not move or speak, as though he is caught between one moment and the next, as though the world around him is a film and he is only a photograph. _

_Elizabeth is furious now, and she is trying to shake his solid statue form. "Forever!" she is shouting. "Forever!" She has transformed into Bella; she has been Bella all along. "It's your line!" she yells into Mr. Darcy's frozen distant expression. "You say you love me, always! This isn't how it's supposed to end! Edward, say something!" _

I think I wake up in what you'd call a cold sweat, although it's hard to know because my sweat is always cold. I turn over in the vast sea of blankets, rolling into the empty place in the bed next to me. It's no colder than the place where I had been lying.

Before, sometimes when I couldn't sleep I used to listen to the other people in the house, lulled by the organic rhythms of their lungs and hearts. I still listen for Carlisle out of habit before I remember that he is gone, and mine is the only breath left here. In the fall, I could listen to the movements of the neighbors through their open windows, but now the ground is frozen and the windows are closed. Outside, I smell the arrival of snow.

_Bella loves snow_. I smile, thinking of her waking tomorrow in a freshly white world, but the silence of the house expands within me. There isn't the same comfort in the hum of the fridge or the ticking of the clock. _Maybe I should get a dog_, I think.

I'm hungry, I realize. _When did I eat last?_ Not remembering, I pad downstairs in my underwear and survey the entire contents of the fridge: a jar of Dijon mustard, a pitcher of orange juice, and a quart of pig's blood. The pig's blood is for convenience; I still hunt when I feel like it, but sometimes it's just not worth the effort. And part of me enjoys the curious looks I get when I show up, twice weekly, to collect it from the butcher's shop.

I'm tired of pig's blood and I'm sick of orange juice. I consider mixing them together for variety, but in the end I pour a glass of each and drink them standing at the counter.

I can't go back to bed. I pick up a book at random, but it's _The Old Man and the Sea_, which is probably the only book that's as depressing as my life. Usually, when I'm in this kind of mood I play the piano, but tonight I can't focus and even if I could I'm not sure I'd want to express what I feel.

There's the TV in the living room, and a half-finished Music History paper on Mahler on the computer upstairs, but I end up sitting in Carlisle's study doing nothing. Well, not exactly nothing; I'm totally engaged in staring at the wall and missing everybody.

It's not always like this. There are people in the Music program that I consider good friends, and anyway for most of my life I've liked to spend a lot of time on my own. Often a few hours pass—sometimes even a few days go by—without any of it catching up with me. And every time I realize that this—school, the piano, the big, empty house—is all there will be in my life, it gets a little easier to accept.

But there are moments from that day that I can't stop reliving—my long hesitation over Jacob's blood, the sight of Bella's mangled hand—and others, like the moment of Esme's death, that I can no longer picture even when I try.

The day after it all happened, Bella wouldn't let me in when I came to see her. The sight of her empty expression made an ordinary conversation feel impossible. "I came to . . ." _To tell you that I love you? To beg you to forgive me for everything I didn't do? _". . . to fix your door, I guess."

"Carlisle's already taken care of everything," she said tonelessly, opening the door just wide enough to let me see its repaired frame. "Anyway, I think I'll probably move out of here as soon as I can." She was leaning on the door, about to close it.

"Look, Bella, I—"

"There's nothing you can say." She looked bitter and drawn, with a tiredness that I had never seen in her eyes before. I wanted to smooth the expression off her face, but I knew better than to touch her. "I've been an idiot, and I let you fuck with my head until now, but I'm not forgetting what I saw last night. After I move, I'd appreciate it—" Her voice broke and she turned away as though she was ashamed to be crying. "I'd appreciate it if you would not try to find out where I live."

"But Bella, I love—"

"I know how you feel about me now, and it's an insult to us both to pretend that it's love." I felt the anger behind her words as physically as a punch in the gut.

She forced herself to look me in the eye. "But if you have any feeling for me at all, I hope you will tell me the truth about this: do you think you can stay away?"

_Stay away?_ I figured out what she meant by the slight tremor in her hand. She was afraid of me—afraid I would stalk her, or break into her house, or worse. Was she right? It would be hell not knowing if she was safe, not being able to see her or smell her, let alone touch her, imagining her in some unknown place with a stranger's hands all over her . . . the monster would be nearly uncontrollable. I could barely control it now.

But it would be far harder to watch paranoia break her spirit, knowing I was the cause. "If that's what you want, then I promise," I said, and I meant it.

She nodded, and her visible relief hurt even more than her anger. "Goodbye, Edward."

Inside, the monster raged and railed like a creature in a cage, but I let her close the door. I stood in the hallway long enough to hear the final click of the lock.

I didn't break the lock and force her to admit her love. I didn't pound on the door until she opened it so I could convince her of mine. All the usual romantic comedy scenarios flashed through my mind—a public serenade, a room full of flowers, a heartfelt declaration of my feelings—but Bella wasn't superficial and none of those would mean anything to her if she didn't trust me. And I had promised to leave her alone.

I don't know if it was courage or cowardice, but I left without trying to change her mind.

I ran from there and didn't stop until I reached a forest, where I lost myself in hunting, killing, and drinking. I remember little from that time—only that my world shrank to the efficient deadly certainty of a predator stalking its prey, and that I relished the screams of the dying animals as an expression of my own pain.

I awoke days later in my bed with my hair full of twigs and my body covered in dirt and animal blood. I must have done some healing in the wilderness, because after a very long, hot shower, I emerged as a nearly functional human being. After that, I went to school and returned home every day like clockwork. Time passed, and I kept going—empty, mechanical, but still moving.

It wasn't the same for Carlisle. He was drunk every day when I came home from school, and still asleep every morning when I left. He was violently angry on some nights, and on others he was in tears. In a way, I think the routine of making him dinner and helping him into bed every night was part of what held me together in the first couple of weeks.

And then I came home one night and, not hearing his presence, I went straight to the study. On the desk where I had found him sleeping the last night and the night before, there was instead a pile of papers. They were mostly official documents—banking records, the deed to the house, with everything transferred to me—but there was also an envelope with my name on it.

_My son,_

_I have made so many mistakes. I have become what I was never meant to be, and orchestrated events that were never meant to happen. At the most crucial moments of my life, I have been weak when I should have been strong, and those I love most have been the ones who have most suffered. Like a thoughtless child, I have in my foolishness destroyed what was dearest to me._

_Is it possible to outrun one's self and one's sins? I know only that I can no longer tolerate being the man that I am, or the memories that I have. My hope is that, if I go far enough and fast enough, I might arrive at a clean slate, or an opportunity to do some sort of good that could ease my guilt in at least a small measure. I think—I hope—that you will understand that I see no other way to go on at all. _

_I will be in touch when I can, and will return to you if ever I can manage it. With the exception of a few things I needed for my travels, I have seen to it that everything I have is now yours. _

_Know this: few of my decisions have been wise ones, but I have never regretted taking you into our family. You have brought nothing but love to my life, and all the pain I have caused and suffered has been the result of my poor judgement, not yours. We all struggle with ourselves, but do not doubt that you are a good man. I know that Esme would agree with me—the real Esme, who I choose to remember only as she truly was, not as I remade her. _

_Forgive me for not leaving you in person; this was the only way I could find the strength to do it. I'm afraid it's just another way in which I've failed to be the father you deserve. _

_Carlisle. _

I heard from him recently, and he seems to have found a place in Kenya, where he is providing medical care in a camp for Ugandan refugees. He sounded tired speaking over the noisy phone line, but it's good to think of him working again, making his life mean something.

If I had anything to give, I might follow in his footsteps. But I'm not a doctor, and a musician is only any good if there's somebody to listen to him. At least if I haven't done any good, I haven't done any evil either—it's been hard, sometimes unspeakably so, but I've kept my promise to Bella.

Yeah, congratulations to me for not stalking my ex-girlfriend. I should get an award.

I _have_ seen her, but only once. It wasn't on purpose; my friends dragged me to a Halloween party at some seedy club downtown. It was "fetish night," which apparently meant that the whole of Seattle was invited to show up half-dressed in latex and fuck total strangers. How scandalous. I don't really know why I went except that I figured, _fuck it, I'm in college, isn't this what people my age are supposed to want to do?_ It takes a lot to get me drunk, but that night I really managed it.

I was sitting at a booth with this obnoxiously wasted girl draped over me, which was awkward enough except that she was wearing nothing but underwear and cat ears, which kept poking me in the face as she tried to nuzzle my neck. I thought about moving, but I was sluggish with alcohol and her body was warm. I could smell the chemicals that had been used to dye her bright red pigtails, probably earlier that day. She had her hand on my jeans, uncomfortably close to my cock. "You know, I'm a very kinky girl," she whispered in a voice I'm sure she thought was positively dripping with seduction. The monster had begun to think I should show her how very much she had to learn when I noticed the door opening at the far corner of the room.

Bella walked in. The floor-length black dress she was wearing made her by far the most fully clothed woman in the place, but it captured every perfect curve. When I saw that she was wearing my collar, my heart leaped and my cock swelled simultaneously before I understood what it meant.

The collar was attached to a leash, and the leash was in a hand I didn't recognize. It was some guy with a couple of muscles who thought he was all that in a pair of leather pants. He spiked his blond hair, and I could smell his cologne over all the other unpleasant party odours—floral essence of paint thinner with a hint of octogenarian. What a fuckwad.

And he was walking _my_ Bella wearing _my _collar like they fucking belonged to him, smiling like he owned the whole fucking place. I wanted to crush every part of his body that had touched her, and then I'd pop his eyes for looking.

The drunk bitch next to me had taken out my cock and was stroking it. Whatever. It felt okay. Maybe I'd kill him from the inside—shove my arm down his throat and see if I could break his spine before he choked to death. Or maybe I'd tie him to something and watch him bleed out from a hundred tiny bites. This douchebag wasn't even worth drinking.

But Bella . . . the skin of her neck was white and paper-thin next to the slender straps of that dress and the leather collar rubbing against her throat. I grabbed the fake redhead by her cat ears and shoved her head into my lap. She gagged on my length and then moaned in pleasure. Both felt equally good. Bella's dress had these long slits that ran almost to the top of her thighs. Her legs were bare underneath, flickers of skin showing coyly as she walked. It would be nothing to pull on the front of that dress enough to tear all the way up those slits and expose her completely, every pore available to my all-possessing eyes. I'd throw her to the ground and drink from the spot on her thigh that almost showed each time she took a long stride. I could keep her down with one hand holding both delicate wrists, my other hand free to search every sweet curve of her body . . .

She saw me and her eyes widened like she was a deer who'd noticed just as I was about to pounce. I met her gaze before I could hide the naked want that I'm sure was showing in my face. She grew impossibly more pale, and it was only when her sight flicked toward my lap that I remembered the lush with her lips wrapped around my cock. What the _fuck_ was she doing there? _It should be you_, I thought, my whole body singing with want for Bella, and I opened my mouth to say—what? _This girl is nothing; I don't even know her name? She doesn't matter; nothing can ever matter without you?_

She turned and whispered something to the fuckwad she came in with, her full lips almost touching the diamond in his pierced ear. He nodded, and they were leaving together. I tried to memorize every detail of her body as she turned away from me—enough to last for months of fantasy if it took that long before I saw her again.

_I can't go after her, I promised . . . _I grabbed the redhead by the pigtails and fucked her face until she started to struggle. I pushed her away roughly, but not as roughly as I wanted to. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I think I said it over and over as I straightened her cat ears, caressed her shoulders awkwardly, and staggered through the mass of warm bodies and out into the glow of a sickly yellow streetlight. The cold, crisp air woke me from my stupor and gave my thoughts a degree of clarity that I really could have done without.

At home that night, my need for Bella grew past the point that my body could contain it. To keep myself in the house—to keep myself from breaking my promise to her—I played her lullaby in a continuous loop, for hours without stopping.

It was easier to play up to the point that I had played it for her the afternoon I introduced her to Esme. But after that, every chord came with the knowledge that she would never hear it—and that I'd never even told her I'd written it for her.

But it was still some comfort, playing my love into the same Seattle night where, somewhere, Bella was. And with each repetition, the music expanded, as I found in it the seeds of other movements that spoke my despair, my fantasies, and the violence of my longing. Those movements were, for the following weeks, my distraction and my solace in the treacherous hours between classes and sleep. The lullaby became the centre of a sonata made to hold all the passion that overflowed when I was alone.

I played the finished work a couple of weeks ago at the semester-end student honours concert. I was nervous as hell, but I forced myself onstage and played all forty-five soul-bearing minutes of the _Sonata for Bella_. The crowd gave me a standing ovation, and I thought by the tears in their eyes that maybe some of them had understood me. But I scanned the crowd for the only audience that mattered, and I knew she was not there. I didn't even realize I'd hoped for it until I felt despair advance and swallow me again.

I'm such a fucking _girl_ sometimes.

* * *

Swivelling in Carlisle's giant office chair, I see that the snow is falling pretty hard for Seattle. The ground is as flat and white as an empty page, and the snow absorbs the sounds of the night, eliminating echoes. The stillness frames the rhythmic crunch of footsteps . . .

Footsteps that scuff in the icy driveway, then sound on the hollow steps of the front door. Has Carlisle returned? Has one of my crazy friends shown up to kidnap me for some middle of the night adventure?

I won't admit it to myself, but I'm certain that it's Bella. The same way I've been certain every time I've answered the door for the past three months, surprising postal workers, pizza boys, and girl scouts with a deranged look of crushed desperation I've now perfected.

When I open the door this time, she is there.

Her hand is on the doorbell. A miracle—Bella is _here_, in the flesh and blood. _Beautiful_, my whole body whispers, and I feel a flutter of joy that I can't suppress, not even by reminding myself that she isn't mine anymore. I wonder briefly if she is real, but I know that I can't touch her in case she is. If she's an illusion, it's a good one, solid, and smelling of sugar and snow. There are snowflakes in her hair and her skin is red with the cold.

_Say something, you idiot. _"Bella." She doesn't have a jacket, so I ask her to come inside. I move awkwardly out of the way and close the door behind her. She starts to drip in the warmth of the foyer, and I want to wipe the water off her forehead.

I want to take her in my arms and kiss her until she promises to never leave this house—so badly that I almost do—but I doubt that's what she came for. Instead, I ask her if she would like a blanket.

She doesn't acknowledge my words. "I'm sorry to bother you like this," she says. "I don't know why I came; I just have to know."

She's pulled the sleeves of her hooded sweater down to cover her hands, but I can see that she's clutching a wet lump of orange paper. She holds it out in my direction. "I have to know why you would do this."

I take the paper from her. I try to be delicate, but I can't uncrumple it without tearing. I recognize it, though—it's the program from the honours concert. _Edward Cullen, Second Year. Sonata for Bella_. "Why I would write music for you?"

"Why you would put my name in the title of something like this. People are talking about it, Edward. My roommate's going on and on about how this guy at Cornish is going to be the next fucking Debussy, and then I find out that it's you and you use my name . . . I thought I was over you by now, but then you have to go and put my name at the top of your fucking masterpiece, and it just doesn't make sense when I know I don't mean a single thing to you!"

"You mean everything." I almost whisper it; I can hardly breathe, I'm so close to hope. _She said, "__I thought I was over you" . . . does that mean she isn't? _"I named it for you because I wrote it for you. It was the only way to express . . . how I feel."

"Are you _ever_ going to stop lying to me? I don't even see what you're getting out of it now, when I know you don't mean what you say. I should never have come." She sounds frightened, as though she knows she's on the edge of something. She seems about to turn away—_no, not yet, you just came in—_and then, instead, she asks in a resigned voice, "Can I hear it?"

I realize that I have been leaning towards her, fighting myself not to restrain her from departure. "Of course you can. It's yours."

I guide her to the living room, ever so careful not to touch her. I sit down at the piano, feeling as taut as the highest string. What she doesn't understand? What if I fuck it up? If I don't, could it convince her . . . to change her mind?

I shut out the questions swarming in my head and I play, and it sounds better than it ever has before. It's the essence of a soft caress, a whisper trickling toward the heady throb of passion, then breaking apart into heartache's tumultuous roar. It crescendos to a pinnacle of joy, and it says what I most want to say: _even considering the pain that comes with it, loving you is the greatest gift of my life. _

I can't bear to listen for Bella's movements or her changes in breath as I am playing, so when I play the final notes and turn to look at her, I do not know what to expect. I swivel on the piano bench so I'm facing her on the couch a few feet away.

She looks stunned. In my mind, I trace the small gap between her lips. The orange glow of a streetlight makes a halo in her damp hair. The leather creaks slightly as she moves.

"It's the lullaby, isn't it?" she breathes.

"Yes."

"You wrote it for me."

"Yes."

"But you don't . . . you were going to let Esme kill me, she said you wanted to kill me yourself, and then I saw you with that girl . . ." I want to kiss the bewildered crease from her forehead.

I want to give her some kind of explanation that will undo it all—something to say other than _yes, you're right, I failed you_. "Esme didn't know what she was talking about—she thought that every vampire was as crazy as she was, but I have never, _ever_ wanted to do anything except protect you." _You have to believe that, at least_. "And, God, I wanted to save you, of course I did, but crazy or not she was my _mom_, and I just—no matter how much I love you, I just _couldn't_ end her life for anything. And I know what it looked like, but I _have_ to believe that if Carlisle hadn't come—"

"It's okay," she says gently. "When I saw you drooling over Jacob's blood, and I was in so much pain, I thought you were just like her, only better at hiding it, and you were going to let her murder me because you really didn't care. But it was the opposite, wasn't it? You didn't care too little about me, you cared too much about her."

I'm glad I'm physically incapable of shedding the knot of tears that's formed in my throat. "That's very charitable of you," I croak dryly.

She doesn't answer, and as we sit there the night becomes big and quiet. I fidget with the piano keys, and flick a speck of dust off middle C. She glances around the room, and I can see she's noticing that everything is put away; even the novel I'd picked up earlier is resting precisely against the edge of the coffee table. It looks like nobody lives in the house.

Finally, she speaks. "That girl you're with now, what's her name?"

"What? You mean Cat Ears?"

She raises an eyebrow at me. "She wears them all the time?"

"I don't know," I admit, trying not to meet her eyes. "I only saw her the once."

"Oh," she says, and I smile because she is smiling.

I want to cling to the hope that's blossoming in me, but I know that will only make it harder in the end, so I ask what I have to ask. "You have someone now, though, right? The guy you were with that night."

"Oh, no, not anymore. It didn't work out with Jayne."

"His name is _Jane_? No wonder he was such a fuckwad."

She giggles. "With a _y_, dumbass."

"You were wearing my—I mean, you had a collar."

Now it's her turn to look embarrassed. "I guess I wanted to feel the way I had with you before . . . everything happened." Her blush is so delicious that I can't help mentally reliving a few of those moments—a drop of blood touching her collarbone, her hand raking the wall in passion, the trust in her eyes at the second of release . . . "You know. It wasn't the same though—it was a just game to him, but it was real to me."

That means they had sex. _It's over now_, I say to myself, firmly stamping out the rage before it can distort my judgement. _Think about that later—this is too important. _"So you're not with anyone now?"

"No," she says, and it seems like she's waiting for me to say something. I feel like the whole of my future is hanging on the words I choose next, and none of them are good enough. _My world is empty without you. You were meant for me. I will always love you. Can't I think of one good line that isn't from a fucking pop song?_

The light in her eyes starts to fade and I realize that she's interpreted my silence as rejection, so I blurt out the next thing that comes into my head: "I don't know if I can do this anymore—not having you in my life."

Her smile is as bright and clear as water in a desert. "Me neither," she says.

"Is that . . . a yes?" I don't know if I'm asking because I don't believe it, or if it's just because I want to hear her say it again.

"I don't know, what's the question?" She gives an almost perfect impression of absolute innocence—except for the coy smirk she can't quite hide. _She looks like she needs a spanking_, the monster suggests helpfully.

"Will you take me back?"

She puts a finger in her mouth in pretend deliberation, and I want to _be_ that finger. "Yes," she says.

The most beautiful sentence that's ever been spoken in the history of the English language, and it's one fucking word long.

She shivers involuntarily. "Your clothes are still wet—you must be freezing." I'd forgotten how easily people get cold.

"Oh, no, I'm fine," she says, but I can see she's lying. "I am kind of hungry, though."

"At least let me get you a dry sweater. I don't have a lot of food, but see if there's anything you like in the kitchen."

We stand up at the same time, and it narrows the space between us enough that my desire to touch her becomes almost too much to endure. I can hear by the beat of her heart that she feels it too. _You can't just jump her like an animal_, I remind myself, although the monster thinks that's exactly what I should do. "I'll be right back," I say to break the spell.

When I return with my Cornish sweatshirt, she is standing at the kitchen counter with a half glass of orange juice and a package of vanilla oreos. "Since when do you eat oreos?" she asks.

"They're the ones I bought for you." _You opened them three months and twenty-two days ago_.

"Oh. Well." She pushes the cookies aside, smiling. "This is really good orange juice."

"I, uh, brought your sweater." Her hand brushes mine when she takes it from me, and I can't remember the last time I was touched before this. I'm suddenly, embarrassingly hard.

When she takes of her own hoodie, her wet shirt clings to it, exposing the slight inward curve of her stomach, and the shadows play across her perfect light skin.

_That will be mine again_. I want to mark her there—to bite into the sensitive flesh right above her hip, or just press my hands into that skin until it bruises. _Now. Take her right there on the counter. You can smell that she wants it. _I fight myself to stay perfectly still—I just convinced her I wasn't a monster, and I'm not about to ruin it all now.

She turns her back to put on my sweatshirt. It's one I wore yesterday, and I let slip a low growl of approval as I smell her scent mingling with mine. She hears it and freezes, her heart racing.

"Shit, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to frighten you." Already, I'm fucking this up.

"I'm not frightened." As she turns, I notice her arousal in the air, and I know that she's telling the truth this time. "Actually," she says, "I think it's warm enough in here." That one's a lie, but I let it slide because she takes off the sweater and her wet white t-shirt is clinging to the outline of her bra. _Should I peel it off slowly, or just tear it from her body?_

I take a step toward her and then stop myself.

"It's okay to come closer, you know."

"I'm afraid of what I might do." Jesus, when did I learn to be so damn _honest_?

"I already told you, _I'm_ not afraid." There's a glint in her eyes that I recognize, and I start to panic.

"If I—If I touch you, it's not going to be any different from how it was before. The monster will take over, and I won't be in control and I'll hurt you. And it will remind you of—of what happened—"

"No, it won't. You're nothing like her. I _want_ you to touch me." She comes to me, and places her hand deliberately on my chest. "I trust you."

It's so small and warm, I press it into my body with my own hand, trapping it against me. My heart is thrashing under the heat of her fingers. "What if I hurt you? What if I'm cruel?"

"What if that's what I want?" She takes a deep breath, and then she whispers, "_Sir_." The word strikes me so powerfully I'm afraid I'll break her hand.

_You knew she was yours_, says the monster. The little control I have left is slipping fast, so while I still can I slide my hand around the back of her neck and meet her lips in a long, soft kiss, as gentle as I can manage.

And then I bite her lip, drawing blood. I suck it hard to keep up the flow, swabbing at the coppery sweetness with my tongue. It's heaven, and from the way her nails are raking against the back of my neck, I know she's there with me. She's moaning into my mouth, and I swear that I can taste the vibrations.

Later, there will be time to tie her to my bed and open every secret of her body. Then, I will spend hours touching and reclaiming all the parts of her that I have already memorized. Later, she will relearn the stinging kiss of leather from my hand, and I will caress her curves with the drip of candle wax. She will beg me for pleasure then. Later, I will buy her a collar that no other hand has ever touched, and she will kneel before me to receive it.

But now—_now_, our bodies are so nearly touching that I can feel her human heat through the space between us, and I have wanted that warmth for so long. I sink to my knees, pulling her down with me, and pin her beneath me against the kitchen floor. I press the whole length of my body against her, savouring the feel of her hot and yielding form, trapped between me and the unforgiving tiles.

She moans, pressing her core against me, and I can't stand that I'm not already inside her. I use my teeth, sparing her skin, to tear her jeans apart so I can slide in, where she is wet and warm, blossoming with want. She shudders as I enter her, and I let her wrap her slender arms around me. The sweet slide of her fingers down my back keeps me from dissolving, anchors me as I wrap myself in her body's gentle surrender.

There is a red handprint on her arm where I have been holding her down, and her shoulder blades are bruising against the floor as I pound into her small frame. Her breathing signifies a quick orgasm, so I bite her in the soft place beneath her jaw—where the mark will show.

Bella's blood tastes the same as it always has, of dark chocolate and Christmas spice. It throbs with a nighttime rhythm, and it dazzles my tongue like sunlight. It tastes as clear as courage, and it flows like a strong will freely given. It's as sweet as freedom, and satisfying as home.

* * *

**Bella's POV:**

I wake up into a white world. I'm wrapped in a fluffy white duvet, and Edward's white curtains are open so I can see the pristine, snow-covered branches of the tree outside his window, standing against the snowy sky. Even Edward's arm is pale, trapping me and the duvet in a vice-like hug from which there could be no escape. Fortunately, I'm perfectly happy where I am.

With Edward. I'm still disoriented. After the night with Esme, I'd relived in my mind every minute of my relationship with him, reinterpreting everything with the new knowledge that his love for me was a lie. Before, I would never have really believed that _any_ person, let alone Edward, could be capable of that level of manipulation, but over the course of that night I learned from Esme that monsters are real. She seemed so sure that Edward was like her, and there was so much evidence that I had to believe it.

It feels so good to be wrong. It's also confusing; now I'm mentally rewriting the story of our relationship again, sorting through all the romantic gestures and beautiful moments that I'd had to convince myself were fake, knowing again that they all were genuine.

Not that Edward's perfect. He can be irrational, jealous, controlling, and sometimes a little frightening, and I'll never forget how hard it was for him to resist drinking Jacob's blood that night. But he's also passionate, generous, and devoted—and I believe, now, that he loves me as much as I love him. Will that be enough to keep us together despite everything that's happened, and whatever lies ahead?

Edward, waking, smiles at me and brushes a feather from my cheek. I meet his glowing eyes, and think it might.

* * *

**Please do review! And if you like, put me on author alert - I'll probably post some shorter stories in the future (ones I can finish all at once so I won't leave you hanging).**

**Bye for now.**


End file.
